The (Not So) Great Outdoors
by radredknuxfan
Summary: After finally joining the ZPD, Nick suggests that he and Judy head out to Bunnyburrow thinking that he'll have an easy time there. When awkward questions, hard work on the farm, and even a new case rear their ugly heads, though, what's a city slicker to do when he's so out of his element? Sequel to The Worst Connection. Cover by NEIGHBORSTUDIOS on DeviantArt. Please R&R! Thanks!
1. Chapter 1

Here we go! The long awaited sequel to The Worst Connection is finally underway. Hopefully this title sounds less dumb than the original.

* * *

It was surprisingly quiet inside the confines of Savannah Central, the place where a majority of the day-to-day operations are performed inside the city of Zootopia.

While the fact that it was quiet was a bit of a surprise considering how bustling it is normally, it was also understandable considering everyone was worn out from the Police Academy graduation ceremony that had just been completed an hour ago. It was also a possibility that they were still enjoying the fact that they didn't have to deal with the Bellwether crisis anymore, but that depended on who you spoke to.

Our story starts, however, inside a bar a few blocks away from the park. This bar, called McGregor's, was widely considered as only a few steps above an actual dive bar, but it's also the bar where most of ZPD Precinct One's officers hang out when not on duty.

Today wasn't just any normal hangout day, though, as the officers were in the middle of celebrating the aforementioned graduation of Academy recruits, the most notable recruit being former con fox Nicholas Piberius Wilde.

Despite only really knowing his new co-workers in passing considering the lack of time he spent inside the station, Nick was having the time of his life. He even managed to quickly get on the good side of the notoriously surly Officer McHorn, which was a fact that baffled his newly minted partner, Judy Hopps.

While some of the larger officers were busy talking to each other, Judy took the opportunity to lean over, hoping that she would be able to be heard over the almost constant noise that had overtaken the bar.

"How did you do that? It took me a week to even get him to say one word to me!"

"Lots of experience, Carrots." said Nick, leaning back in his seat. "When you've spent as much time on the streets as I have, you kind of have to be an extrovert to get anywhere."

Judy opened her mouth, wanting to point out the fact that she was just as much of an extrovert as he was, but by the time she was about to actually speak, Nick had already turned away from her, the fox in the middle of an animated conversation with Officer Wolford. Judy could tell that the timber wolf had too much to drink by this point, but she really didn't want to be the one who ruined the vibe of the party, so she kept her mouth shut.

Eventually, the party wound down on its own, considering it was already getting late, and Chief Bogo had no intention of letting all of his officers take the next day off. So, outside of Wolford having to be led to his apartment by Officer Fangmeyer, everyone else went their separate ways as they prepared for the influx of new recruits.

Judy and Nick, meanwhile, decided to head home together. However, just as Judy was about to make her way towards the darker part of the city to where she remembered Nick's apartment to be, she was stopped in her tracks when the fox in question.

"Hey, where are you going, Fluff?"

Confused, she turned around; pointing in the direction she was going as she spoke.

"Isn't your apartment this way? I was going to see you off until tomorrow."

Nick paused, staring blankly at her for a few seconds before his dipped his muzzle, closing his eyes as he chuckled a bit.

"Oh…that dump? I sold it back when I was still at the academy and got a nicer apartment closer to the precinct."

As Judy stared at Nick, surprise etched on to her face, Nick let some air out of his nostrils before continuing on.

"Sorry about not mentioning it to you. I guess it completely slipped my mind considering everything I was going through at that place." he said, shrugging.

While Judy was admittedly a little annoyed that she wasn't told about it until now, she had no real reason to hold a grudge, so she walked over to where Nick was, smiling.

"It's no big deal, Nick. Hey, why don't you show me around? I'm sure we'll have enough time, and besides, I'd love to see it."

Nick briefly considered Judy's proposition. While he was never really one to openly share some of what he's done with his life, he trusted Judy more than anything. Plus, he also showed her his original apartment as well (which to be fair was while they were chained together, so he didn't have much of a choice), so he found no real reason to argue.

"Sure, let's go." he said, shrugging once more before beginning to lead her towards the building.

* * *

It turns out that Nick's new apartment actually wasn't far from the bar. Even better, it was only a block away from Judy's apartment, which excited the young doe greatly.

"Wow, that is so cool, Nick! We can spend so much more time together!" she said, lightly punching him on the arm.

"Well, that was the idea." said Nick, smiling and chuckling a bit. "Come on, let's head inside and I'll show you around a bit.

Judy quickly fell silent, looking like she was eagerly awaiting the chance to see the differences between the proverbial trash heap that was Nick's old apartment and his new one.

Nick led her through the front door, greeting the landlord before heading up to the third floor, where he finally let her in to the door at the end of the hallway, and Judy finally got a chance to see the room.

While she wasn't expecting it to be anything magical considering the fact that she doubted he would have been able to get much for his old apartment, she found that his new apartment was actually pretty nice looking, not to mention the fact that he'd actually managed to keep it clean so far.

There was one thing that really weighed on her, though, and she couldn't help but voice it, turning towards Nick.

"Well, your apartment's way bigger than mine is."

Nick didn't answer, instead visualizing his question with a pair of raised eyebrows. Thankfully, Judy was still looking at him at this point, so she was quickly able to figure out that she needed to elaborate.

"Oh, I forgot that you never saw my apartment. Mine's…around half this size, if I had to guess. Honestly, it's barely bigger than a shoebox."

"Then why don't you find a bigger place? I'm sure there's at least one open nearby."

"Nah, I'm good. I've gotten used to it. I could live without the loud neighbors, but what can you do?"

Nick shrugged, realizing that it was better for him not to try and convince her to reconsider when her mind was already made up, so after glancing at the clock on his phone, he made a show of yawning widely, stretching his arms out into the air before turning back towards his partner.

"Well, it looks like it's getting late. We've got an early morning ahead of us, right?"

Judy glanced at Nick's unenthusiastic expression for a moment before checking her own phone and realizing that Nick was right. Frantic, Judy rushed towards the door, pausing as she had her paw on the doorknob.

"I'll meet you over by Clawhauser's desk, alright?" she asked, giving Nick a pointed look.

Nick, meanwhile, only acknowledged her question with a nod.

"Don't be late!"

Without waiting for an answer, Judy rushed through the door, leaving Nick to chuckle once again as he got ready for bed.

* * *

The next morning came, and Judy found herself waiting at the front desk for Nick, checking her phone every so often for the time while she attempted to carry on a conversation with Clawhauser. Unfortunately for her, Clawhauser was in the middle of a long-winded speech about the merits of Gazelle's earlier work before she became famous, so she had to keep herself occupied by keeping an eye out for Nick.

Thankfully, after a few more minutes passed, the fox in question came through the front door, a large coffee cup clutched in his paw as he tried in vain to wake up.

Despite his lethargic state, Nick's uniform was nice and cleanly pressed, so Judy decided to take it as a win.

Leaving Clawhauser to his own devices, Judy jogged over to meet Nick, giving the tod a smile.

"Hey, you made it! I was beginning to worry you wouldn't make it on time."

Judy was greeted with a massive yawn coming from Nick, his jaws opened wide as he sucked in air.

"Gotta get on Chief Buffalo Butt's good side somehow, right?"

Judy nodded, easily seeing Nick's point.

"I imagine getting up early must have been difficult, though, huh?"

"Oh, you don't know the half of it, Fluff. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I get used to getting up early."

"Not a morning person, I'm guessing?"

"Not really. I'm more of a…whenever I feel like sleeping kind of guy." he said, struggling to describe his sleep habits.

Judy gave him a sympathetic look before deciding it was probably best to get moving before they were late.

"We'd better get to the bullpen, by the way. Getting up early isn't going to do much for Bogo if you're late to morning briefings."

Nick didn't look thrilled at the prospect, but he willingly followed Judy as she led them towards the bullpen, the two of them sharing a seat at the front of the room as they greeted some of the other officers around them.

Thankfully, they were just in time, as it was only a few more moments before the door opened and Chief Bogo himself made his way through, coming to a stop in front of the podium.

"Alright everyone, quiet down!"

The constant stream of chatter coming from everyone soon quieted down, and once everything was finally silent enough for Bogo to be able to talk, the buffalo cleared his throat.

"Well, I'm glad to at least see that not everyone was too drunk to come in after the party last night."

Bogo gave a pointed look to the empty chair that normally would have contained Officer Wolford, the wolf having regrettably taken the day off considering he was nursing an extreme hangover. Thankfully, though, he was the only one who really went up to that level, as while a few of the other officers had been drinking a fair share that night, they all did a much better job at controlling themselves.

Chief Bogo, meanwhile, decided it was probably best to move on from the subject, so after huffing just a bit, he turned back towards the rest of the room as he began speaking once more.

"Now…to business. Before we get started, I'd like to take the time to welcome all of our new recruits, including our first fox officer." he said. "Who cares?"

Despite barely managing to stay awake thanks to the coffee, Nick already managed to have a snarky comment ready.

"You should be a motivational coach, chief. Just imagine the record you'd have with that attitude." said Nick, earning him some sniggers from the officers around him.

"Shut it, Wilde." said Bogo, less angry than usual most likely due to the early hour.

Once everything was quieted down once more, Bogo placed his reading glasses on his nose, glaring at everyone around him before continuing to speak.

"Now, we have been receiving reports of a string of burglaries going on within the boundaries of Sahara Square and the Rainforest District, so most of you will be following up on any leads we can find to get these criminals arrested."

Bogo then picked up a stack of files that he had on the podium, straightening them out with a couple smacks against the wood before beginning to read off the assignments.

Everyone slowly began filing out of the room after receiving their jobs for the day, leaving Judy and Nick as the last ones in the room.

"Hopps and Wilde. You two are going to be patrolling the city with some of the other rookies."

Judy was about ready to argue, but before she could even say a word, Bogo held up one of his hooves to silence her.

"I don't want to hear it, Hopps. I know you're capable of handling higher profile cases, but Wilde doesn't. At least not using proper police procedure." he said, the last sentence spoken under his breath. "You should at least be happy that I didn't decide to put you on parking duty."

Judy was about ready to try and push her point more, but after hearing Bogo's subtle threat, she quickly shut her mouth, not wanting to get herself in trouble and by proxy bring Nick down with her.

"Glad to know that you see it my way." said Bogo, satisfied. "Now get going. Go see Clawhauser at the desk. He'll have your keys for your new cruiser."

Judy quickly hopped off of her seat, more worried about doing something that would screw things up for Nick's first day to think about what Bogo meant with his last sentence.

The two of them walked over to the desk to collect the keys, only to be surprised to find that Clawhauser had only just finished his Gazelle spiel, the cheetah having apparently never noticed Judy leaving in his zeal to extol the virtues of the singer.

Judy ended up giving Clawhauser a bit of an awkward look, but it never went anywhere past that, as she quickly decided to move on and ask what they were originally planning to ask.

"Hey Ben…the Chief said that you apparently have keys for a new cruiser. Can you tell us what this is about?"

Clawhauser's attention was a little unfocused after the speech he was on, so it took him a few seconds to realize what Judy was talking about.

"Oh, right! Chief Bogo told me when I got in that we finally got that new cruiser in. You know, the one custom-fitted for mammals of your size?"

Judy vaguely remembered Bogo mentioning that fact once or twice, but the Bellwether case had her complete attention during that time, so it was understandable that she wouldn't exactly remember.

"That's awesome! I can't wait to check it out." said Judy, looking eager.

After digging around in his desk for a few moments, Clawhauser tossed the keys to Judy, which she caught in an outstretched paw.

"It's near the front of the lot. I'm pretty sure you can't miss it."

"See you later!" she said, waving towards Ben as she led Nick to the parking lot.

They quickly managed to find their way into the lot, and to said car, which while it did look similar to all of the other cars, it was outfitted with specialized pedals, resized seats, and relocated equipment so that they could easily reach everything around them.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Judy hopped into the car, Nick taking the passenger seat without any fuss. However, as they pulled out of the precinct to begin their route, Judy couldn't help but notice that her counterpart seemed deep in thought.

"Something up, Slick?" she asked, concerned.

Nick paused, unsure of how to describe what he was thinking about.

"Hey Carrots, I've got a question for you."

"I'm listening." said Judy, curious.

The young doe waited as Nick briefly considered how he was going to say what he wanted to say. What he did end up saying, though, was something she didn't expect to hear.

"How would you feel about us spending some time down in Bunnyburrow?"


	2. Chapter 2

Nick waited anxiously as Judy considered his offer. However, as he glanced over to where she was sitting in the driving seat, his eyebrows raised a bit when he realized that she hadn't moved from where they originally were sitting, on the way out of the precinct to begin their patrol.

Reaching over, Nick lightly nudged Judy with one of his fingers, successfully managing to bring her back to the real world.

"You still in there, Carrots? We've got a line, and you're zoning out on me."

As soon as Judy realized what Nick was saying, she quickly glanced into the rearview mirror and noticed that, while there was enough room for the other cruisers to maneuver around her, she was still getting some weird looks from her fellow coworkers.

Nervously clearing her throat, Judy looked away from Nick as she finally pulled out of the parking lot, hoping that her partner didn't notice the slight blush that appeared on her face thanks to the embarrassing moment.

"So, uh…what were we talking about again?"

Nick glanced over after hearing Judy's last question, slightly surprised that she'd forgotten about what they were talking about so quickly. Thankfully, though, he kept it to himself, not wanting things to get more awkward between the two of them considering how things have started out.

"I wanted to see what it was like for you out in Bunnyburrow. What's wrong with me being a little adventurous for once in my life?"

"No, there's nothing wrong!" said Judy, quickly trying to calm the slightly riled up fox. "It's just…where did this come from all of a sudden? You don't seem like the type to rough it out on the farm."

"I'm not talking about moving there permanently, Fluff. It's just for a week…maybe more if things go well."

"You still haven't answered my question."

Nick paused, realizing that Judy did have a point, even if he didn't intentionally try to dodge the question.

"Remember back when we nearly got iced by Mr. Big?"

"Only too well." said Judy, suppressing a shiver. "I wouldn't be sitting here right now if it wasn't for you."

"Anyway…" said Nick, quickly moving on before he did something awkward. "I doubt you remember this part, but after I pulled you out of the river, I mentioned wanting to visit Bunnyburrow with you after we dealt with the Bellwether case. Well…I didn't forget, and here we are."

Judy let out a 'hmm' noise, pleasantly surprised that Nick was able to remember something that happened over six months ago when even she didn't have that great of a long term memory.

"So…are you up for it?" asked Nick, looking expectantly as he waited for her answer.

The two of them had just pulled up to a red light when Nick asked his question, so Judy took the opportunity to have a little fun, placing a finger on her chin as she pondered whether to take him up on his offer.

"Uh…sure, why not? I'm willing to show you my home…that is if you're willing to show me yours."

Nick was admittedly a little caught off guard by Judy's proposition, not expecting to get it thrown back at him. Still, being the smooth talker that he was, he was quickly able to pull himself together and come up with a reply.

"Didn't we already do that last night? I mean, if you want to spend some more time at my apartment, I'd be happy to uh…show you around." he said, making a show of readjusting his tie.

"Nick, seriously! Not while we're working!" scolded Judy, her face turning an even brighter shade of red than before. "Besides, I wasn't talking about where you live. I was talking about where your parents live."

Nick had a feeling that this was what Judy had in mind when she spoke about it, but hearing it come from her mouth was something he really wasn't thrilled about.

"How does after we come back sound?"

"Not happening, Slick. Either we go before we leave, or we're not going to Bunnyburrow."

Judy had already decided that she was going to remain firm in her decision and refuse to compromise, but as Nick looked away to consider her counteroffer, she couldn't help but notice the slightly worried look that her partner had on his muzzle.

"Something wrong, Nick?" she asked, her expression softening as she realized that this was a big thing considering how good he was at hiding his emotions.

Nick briefly considered just going out and telling her, but with how open he was in telling her the Ranger Scout story a while back, he really wasn't ready to be any more open than he already had been.

"It's nothing. Yeah, I'll take you."

Nick's dismissive tone failed to relieve any of the worries that were nagging Judy at the moment, but with her currently being behind the wheel of a high-powered police cruiser, she felt that it probably wasn't the best time for her to confront Nick on that fact, so she decided it was best to leave it alone for now.

The two of them were silent for a little while, as they had reached the beginning of their patrol route not long after finishing their conversation. However, it wasn't too long before the silence was broken by an unexpected source.

"You know, now that I think about it, we are going to have to run this whole trip by the Chief. I'm not sure he's going to like us taking a week off."

"What do you mean? I'm sure Bogo would be more than willing to be accommodating." said Nick, looking more confident than he had any right to be.

"I hate to break it to you, Slick, but I think you might be barking up the wrong tree."

Nick opened his muzzle to make a snide comment, only to pause when he registered the last part of her sentence.

"Oh, ha ha, Carrots. Very funny." he said sarcastically.

"What?" asked Judy, looking innocent despite only having just connected the dots and realized the pun.

"'Barking up the wrong tree'?"

Nick fell silent, but after noticing Judy failing to suppress a giggle at the mention of the phrase, he couldn't help but chuckle a bit himself, Judy's actions looking incredibly endearing to the fox.

"Well, either way, all I have to do is turn up the charm a bit, and I think we're golden, Fluff. Besides, what makes you think Buffalo Butt will say no to the duo that cracked the Bellwether case?"

* * *

"No."

Nick's expression faltered, the two of them standing in Chief Bogo's office as they had just attempted to get that week off so they could head down to Judy's home.

"Come on Chief, can't you just make an exception this once?" he asked, failing to come up with anything more convincing.

Sighing, Bogo closed a file that he had in his hooves, placing it down on the desk in front of him before affixing his eyes on the two officers in front of him, more specifically Nick.

"Wilde, you've barely been on the force for twenty four hours officially. Did you really think I was going to let you take a week off when you've barely done any work in the first place?"

Nick opened his muzzle to say something, but before he could do so, Bogo held up a hoof to silence him.

"I don't want to hear it, Wilde. Talk to me when you've actually put in some work, and maybe I might reconsider."

"And how long would that take, sir?" asked Nick, his voice coming out a little timid considering he was relatively sure that Bogo wouldn't like it.

Nick's prediction was in fact accurate, but instead of berating his subordinate, Bogo instead gave Nick a dark look before answering.

"Six months. No more…no less. Same goes for you too, Hopps."

Judy nearly jumped, her ears shooting up into the air as she did not expect to get pulled into the conversation so quickly.

"I know that you've been here longer than Wilde, but due to your…temporary leave of absence…the time that you've built up has been reset, so you're back to square one."

While Judy wasn't exactly the happiest girl in the world to know that she was basically starting from the beginning in terms of vacation time, she was willing to go along with it considering she was only there for a few weeks before her spell back home.

"Now, I don't want to hear another word out of you two about time off until you've built up enough to use. Am I clear?"

"Yes sir." said both Nick and Judy, the latter speaking crisply while the former had a more lackadaisical attitude when replying.

Bogo grumbled in displeasure as he clearly noticed the tone that Nick had, but the file he was reading was for an important case, so he decided to let that transgression go so that he could get back to finishing it.

"Dismissed."

With a pair of salutes, Nick and Judy took their leave from Bogo's office, shutting the door behind them before finally relaxing.

"See what I mean, Nick? Chief Bogo can be a bit of a hardass sometimes, but he's not entirely cold hearted." said Judy, a small smile on her face now that her warning to Nick was proven right.

"Okay, okay…I'll give you that one for free, Carrots. Now…let's get something to eat. I'm famished."

"Oh come on, Nick. You barely even had to do anything this morning." said Judy playfully.

"Hey, don't blame me if it was a slow morning. Besides, I've been looking forwards to lunch time since this morning."

Judy opened her mouth to say something, but held her tongue when she realized that he was completely right. Their morning was in fact incredibly slow, the only real action being a pair of traffic stops, and even then it only led to a pair of tickets for both drivers.

While she wasn't exactly thrilled with how the day was going so far, considering it limited the amount of on the job experience that Nick would receive, she also didn't mind getting an easy day for once, especially after what she'd been through.

As for Nick, he looked down at Judy, who had adopted a questioning look on her face as she remembered what he had said prior to her small moment of thought.

"I didn't get a chance to eat breakfast, alright? I was barely awake this morning, not to mention the fact that I was running a bit late."

"Well…at least you made it to lunch time, right? I'd hate to have to patrol on an empty stomach." said Judy.

Nick shrugged. Instead of saying anything more, he led the way while the two of them headed down to the first floor and through the lobby, notifying Clawhauser of their lunch break before finally heading back out into the city.

* * *

Despite Nick making multiple attempts to bother Chief Bogo about their vacation time, the cape buffalo surprisingly never heard a peep from him or Judy about the subject, thanks mostly due to the latter preventing Nick from bringing it up in various ways, including having to resort to tranquilizing him. Unfortunately for him, the shot ended up in his behind, so he wasn't actually sleeping in the most comfortable position in the world.

Needless to say, he wasn't exactly happy with Judy's methods, and neither was Bogo, but his annoyance was tempered a bit thanks to getting some freedom from the irritating fox.

Thankfully, though, the wait did give him more of an opportunity to get experience like Judy wanted him to. Surprisingly, the two of them managed to pull off a not too shabby arrest record, which while it was very commendable for them to do, their methods were a little unorthodox.

One of the most infamous cases which ended with them getting chewed out by Bogo happened to involve a burglary ring within the confines of the Rainforest District. While all of the culprits were arrested, a majority of the evidence was destroyed thanks to Judy accidentally dumping a table full of the stolen items into a large pot that was being used to melt the gold and silver into bars.

Luckily, there was still enough to convict them, but Bogo certainly wasn't happy about how close they came to walking free.

This incident was pretty early on during the period, though, so this gave Chief Bogo an opportunity to cool off.

Eventually, the six months since Nick's first day came and went, and the two of them once again found themselves in the chief's office, eagerly awaiting the good news.

As for Bogo, while he was still annoyed at being bothered by the two of them, he could find nothing to berate them about considering how well the two of them have been doing since they became partners.

So, with a reluctant sigh, Bogo tucked his reading glasses into his shirt pocket, interlacing his hooves as he rested his chin on them, staring at Nick and Judy as he considered what to say.

"Well…as much as your methods are going to give me a migraine on day, you two have done well over these past months. I find no other reason not to let you take your time off if you still wish to do so. You have put in the required work to get it."

Even though Chief Bogo had left his last sentence open to interpretation, both Judy and Nick had already made their decision.

"Thank you, sir." said Judy. "We appreciate that you're still willing to give us the chance even though…things have happened."

Despite Judy's vague answer, Bogo knew exactly what she was talking about. Still, he remained silent, allowing her to continue.

"Isn't that right, Nick?" she asked, having turned her head to face the fox cop in the interim.

"Right, of course!" he said, slightly caught off guard by getting pulled into the conversation.

Bogo glared at Nick, slightly miffed that he didn't appear to be fully honest, but he decided that it was probably best to move on before a headache started to come in.

"Go speak to Clawhauser. Considering this is the first time you two have had time off, you are required to fill out a few forms. Thankfully, though, they don't take too bloody long." he said, the last sentence being spoken under his breath.

Even though their excitement was tempered a bit due to the impending paperwork, Nick and Judy were still more than happy to get it over with so that they could go.

As the sun set on yet another day, Judy and Nick quickly filled out the required paperwork, heading towards the door as they prepared to finally go on their trip.

"Have fun, you two!" said Clawhauser, waving as the door swung closed behind them.

As they headed down the steps, Nick sighed in contentment before turning towards Judy.

"So Carrots, I think I'll go home and pack up, and we'll meet at the train station tomorrow morning. How does that sound?"

"Try the afternoon, Slick."

Nick's eyebrows quickly rose, not expecting this kind of answer from her. As she explained what she meant, though, his eyebrows went even higher, as he was reminded of something that he was really not looking forwards to doing.

"Don't think I forgot about what you promised me. We're going to see your home tomorrow morning, and then we'll get the train that afternoon. Sound good?"

* * *

 **Surprisingly, I actually did a fair share of research into this chapter. Most of the officers I've read about accrue vacation time based on how long they have been working. One example was that a year's worth of work would lead to 14 days of vacation time, so that is what I based it on, with six months equaling a week. I'm not sure if that would apply in real life, but for the purpose of this story, that's what I'm going with.**


	3. Chapter 3

"Aw, I was kind of hoping that you'd forgotten about it."

Nick had a playful smile on his muzzle as he spoke, even though inside he was racking his brain trying to come up with a way to get out of having to go and see his mom.

"Nope. You're not getting away from me that easy, Wilde."

"Of course not."

Nick sighed heavily before continuing on.

"Alright, how about I meet you down at the bus stop near City Hall? We'll take a bus down to my mom's house, spend a bit there, and hopefully get on our way to Bunnyburrow in the afternoon."

"Sounds good to me." said Judy, nodding.

The young doe was about ready to head back to her apartment to pack up, but just as she looked back to say goodbye to Nick for the night, she clearly noticed the dispirited look on her partner's muzzle.

"Okay Nick, I can tell that something's going on with you. Is this something to do with your mom?"

Nick didn't answer immediately, which even brought the normally rambunctious Judy down a bit. Stepping forwards, she placed a comforting paw on her partner's arm, considering he currently had his own paws in his pockets.

"Seriously Nick, I'm here for you if you need to get something off of your chest."

"Not yet, Judy."

Judy's eyes quickly widened at the mention of her real name. Nick only ever used her real name rarely, and that was usually when things were serious, so she knew something was going on.

However, before she could ask what he meant, Nick beat her to the punch, letting out yet another sigh as he adopted a more encouraged expression compared to what he had been feeling a moment ago.

"I'll tell you about it on the bus tomorrow. Promise."

"You sure?" asked Judy. "I know how you are about sharing things about yourself in public."

"Nah, I'm okay with it. Besides, I've never seen a quiet bus every time I've ever taken one, so I'm pretty sure we won't be overheard."

Judy let out a small noise of acknowledgement before deciding it was probably best to head home.

"I'd better get going. It's getting kind of late."

"Sure thing, Carrots. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Pack only what you really need, alright? We've got a bunch of stuff that you can use if need be at the house."

Judy paused in her explanation for a moment, realizing that she forgot one important thing.

"Speaking of, I really should call my parents to let them know we're coming."

After waving goodbye, Nick watched as Judy pulled out her phone, dialing a number before placing it up against her ear.

He only watched for a few more seconds before deciding that he should probably get to work packing himself. He certainly didn't want to show up at the bus stop woefully unprepared tomorrow.

And so, he turned around, heading back to his apartment as he thought about what he was going to bring with him, the fox trying his best not to think about what his mom was going to think when he pops up tomorrow at her door.

* * *

Just like with work, Judy was the first at the bus stop the next morning, the bag she used to bring all of her stuff to Zootopia in the first place clutched in her paw as she anxiously waited for Nick to arrive.

It wasn't too long, thankfully, before the fox cop arrived as well, his own bag in tow.

"Not wearing a tie today, Slick?" she commented as she watched Nick sit down next to her.

"It's our first official vacation day, didn't you know?" he said, a sly smile on his muzzle. "When I get the chance to live a little, I like to go all the way."

"Wow, such a rebel." teased Judy.

"I try."

"At least you still have that Hawaiian shirt on, though. I'd hate to see what your mom would think if you visited her shirtless."

"I can go a little further if you want, Carrots." he said, waggling his eyebrows as he moved his paws towards the top button on his shirt.

Thankfully, though, before he could actually unbutton it, he was quickly stopped.

"Nick, seriously! It's your mom!" she said, her cheeks burning a bit as she lightly pushed him with her paw.

"I was kidding, Carrots!" he said, chuckling. "Don't worry, I know better than to strip in front of my own mother."

"I kind of figured that you were, but still, that's good to hear at least."

Judy fell silent for a few moments, looking around the area before pulling out her phone and checking the time.

"That's strange. I thought the bus would be here by now."

"Maybe it's running a bit late. You know how traffic gets in this city sometimes." commented Nick, taking a look around the square himself.

"True, but the first train to Bunnyburrow leaves at 1:00, and I told my mom and dad that we'd be coming on that one."

"Oh, speaking of, what did they think about this whole thing?"

"My mom's all for it, thankfully. My dad…not so much."

"Why not?" asked Nick, curious. "Didn't you say that there was this one fox that they're working with now?"

"Yeah, but we've known Gideon since I was a kid. You're a bit of a different story."

"Must be because he doesn't know me yet, right?"

"Unfortunately. I tried telling him about how you're the sweetest guy I've known since I came here, but I don't think he was ready to fully embrace you yet."

Judy fell silent for a moment, but she ended up having to quickly elaborate when she noticed the slightly upset look on her partner's muzzle.

"But hey, maybe once he gets to know you personally he can finally do so."

Judy watched Nick as he considered what Judy had said, a mixture of emotions flitting across his muzzle as he processed it through his mind.

"Alright, I suppose that's fair. I'll give it a shot."

Nick had one of his usual sly smiles on as he revealed his feelings about the matter, which made Judy smile as well considering she knew that it usually meant good things when it came to the enigma that was Nick Wilde.

A few seconds later, just as their conversation finished, the bus finally arrived, and the two of them boarded, carrying their bags with them.

After paying the fare, the two of them headed towards the back of the bus, Judy thankful to find out that it was indeed bustling inside. There was a steady stream of conversation traveling between the groups of mammals on the bus with them, so the odds were pretty good that they wouldn't be overheard.

Once they sat down at an empty seat near the back, and the bus pulled away from the sidewalk, Judy tucked her bag next to her side on the seat before folding her paws in her lap and looking over at Nick sitting next to her.

"So, Mr. Wilde, how about you share with me what's got you so worked up about visiting your mother?"

Nick clearly did not look happy at the prospect of having to share this kind of information, and Judy could clearly tell that this was the case.

"Come on Nick, you made a promise."

Nick sighed, remembering that he did do so.

"Alright…I'll tell you."

After making a quick check around him to make sure no one was listening in, he leaned over towards Judy as he began speaking.

"I haven't seen her since I was ten."

"What? Why?" she asked, her words almost coming out in a shout before she caught herself.

"Let's just say she didn't like my choice of lifestyle. We've talked over the phone sometimes, but we've never been face to face since then."

"Not even for graduation? Nick, I can't believe you would do that!"

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to invite her! Believe me, I've had moments where I've regretted disappointing her like this, but I've always had ways to not have to think about it."

Judy fell silent, not even sure what to think about this new revelation.

"Nick, I really think you should apologize to her. Just do it right when we get there, and you won't have to get yourself worked up like this."

"But what do I even say to her? 'Hey mom, sorry for not visiting you for twenty years. I've been out doing what mammals expect a fox to do.' Screw that."

Judy opened her mouth to argue, but she soon realized that Nick was indeed getting himself worked up like she thought he would. After taking a moment to collect her thoughts, she calmly looked up to Nick as she spoke once more.

"All you need to do is speak from the heart, Nick. I can tell you want to mend fences with her. You just have to be honest."

Nick thankfully managed to hold his tongue as well, as he realized that she did in fact have a point. After taking a few moments to calm himself down, he opened his eyes and smiled.

"Thank you, Carrots. I think I needed that."

Judy acknowledged the thanks with a silent nod and smile of her own. However, just as she was about to turn around and spend some time looking out the window while they waited to get to Nick's mom's apartment, Nick spoke up once more.

"Did you get that advice from someone? That didn't sound like your basic Carrots material."

"Uh yeah, I got it from Gideon. Why?"

"No reason. Just curious."

Judy gave Nick a weird look, but she couldn't exactly figure out what the deal was with why he even asked that question, so she decided to drop the subject, figuring that it wasn't really worth the effort to ask.

* * *

The trip to Nick's parents' house took longer than Judy would have liked, especially if she wanted to get on the train on time, but as the bus pulled into the area where it was located, her worries were diminished as she registered exactly where they were.

"You guys lived in the Rainforest District?"

"Yep. Housing's on the cheap side in this part of the city, and we weren't exactly rolling in dough."

"At least you actually managed to get a house. To be honest, I wasn't really expecting you guys to be living in this district."

"Where did you think we would be living then?" asked Nick, curious.

"Savannah Central. No offense, I just figured that it would be the most likely place with what I know about you…especially after the scout thing."

Judy was a little worried that she might have touched a nerve bringing up the Junior Ranger Scout incident, but thankfully Nick remained his usual self, resting his arms on his lap as he waited for them to arrive.

"None taken, Fluff. I actually kind of enjoyed living here. Sure, the weather sucked, but what can you do?"

The two of them fell silent, letting the noise around them hold their attention as most of the passengers on the bus have already disembarked during their journey.

Eventually, the bus pulled up to the stop they were looking for and Nick, having recognized the stop next to them, gestured for Judy to start heading off of the bus.

"Ladies first." he said, accentuating his statement with a flourish of his free paw not holding the bag.

Judy couldn't resist a giggle as she watched Nick act out, shifting her bag to her other paw.

"Wow, you're such a gentlemammal today. What's the occasion?"

Judy hadn't moved as she made that proclamation, which forced Nick to quickly shoo her towards the door so they didn't anger the driver due to their loitering.

Once they actually made their way on to the sidewalk next to the bus stop, though, Nick finally gave his answer.

"I'm just in a good mood today. I've got a week free to spend time with you and your family, so why wouldn't I be?"

"Fair enough." said Judy, shrugging.

After a few seconds where Judy and Nick took the time to readjust their bags to a more comfortable position, Nick took the lead as he led the two of them to where his parents' house was.

Unfortunately, getting to the house proved to be a bit of a walk, considering it wasn't really all that close to the bus stop they were dropped off at. Thankfully, though, they still had a decent amount of time before the train left, so Judy wasn't worrying yet.

As they made turn after turn through the winding streets of Nick's old neighborhood, Judy attempted to keep her mind off of how long this was taking by striking up another conversation with him.

"So, tell me about your mother. What's she like?"

Nick paused, not exactly expecting to get this kind of question from her, but he was thankfully able to quickly come up with an answer.

"Oh, she's the sweetest vixen you'll ever meet within this district. Back when I was still a kid, I loved her more than anything. Heck, she was even the one who saved up money to get me that uniform."

"Wow, that's pretty cool. I can't wait to meet her." said Judy, smiling as she pictured in her mind what she'd be like. "How about your dad?"

This question ended up getting a little bit of an unexpected reaction from Nick, as a flash of disgust passed his muzzle before he adopted a nonplussed expression.

"Did I say something wrong, Nick?" asked Judy, a little worried as she noticed the reaction.

"No Carrots, you're fine." he said, sighing as he closed his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts.

Judy wasn't really convinced that she didn't say something wrong, but before she could actually try and get him to explain what he meant, Nick went ahead and did so anyway.

"My dad left when I was eight."

"That's horrible!" said Judy, gasping as she registered what he had just said.

"I told you it's fine, Carrots. I've gotten over it years ago. Frankly, I'm happy he left."

"He can't have been that bad, can he?" asked Judy, trying her best not to think too far into what he said.

"Oh yeah, he was pretty bad. I'd rather not get into any details, but needless to say, he was your basic deadbeat dad."

"That's a shame."

Nick let out a noise of agreement, refusing to say anything more, as by this point they were just heading up the porch of what Judy assumed was his parents' house.

However, as he went to knock on the door, he hesitated, his clenched paw inches away from the door.

Judy could tell that he reconsidering his determination to finally meet face-to-face with his mom, so she quickly went into action, placing a reassuring paw on his arm as the fox looked down at her.

"Go on, Nick. You can do it."

Nick didn't look like he wanted to do it, but after taking in a breath to calm himself down, he looked back towards the door and finally knocked after another few moments of hesitation.

The two of them waited for what felt like forever before the door opened, revealing a vixen that looked surprisingly like a feminine version of Nick, except for a fair share of gray hairs dotting her head. For all intents and purposes, though, she looked positively spry for someone of the age that Judy assumed that she was somewhere around.

Her thoughts about how she looked were soon quickly dropped, though, as when she managed to pull herself back into the situation in front of her, she was surprised to find a look of shock on the vixen's muzzle, while Nick had a sheepish look on his own.

"Hi, mom. Sorry I'm late."


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh my word…"

This was the first thing that came out of Helen Wilde's muzzle as she registered the fact that her long-lost son was now standing in front of her, the younger fox's expression still a little sheepish after the moment when he first spoke.

The moment was soon broken, though, when Nick noticed his mom step forwards, slowly spreading her arms wide. Expecting a hug, Nick opened his arms as well, but to his surprise, pain shot through his cheek as Helen unexpectedly slapped him.

Nick was admittedly a little stunned due to what his mother just did but, being as experienced as he was in dealing with these kinds of situations, he rolled with it as he plastered on a smile.

"Okay, I guess I deserved that."

What happened next, though, was something that even he didn't expect, as Helen went ahead and hugged him like what was going to happen originally, the vixen burying the side of her muzzle into his shirt as she spoke.

"Of course you did, you idiot! How do you think a mother would feel when her son disappears for twenty years?"

Nick paused as he thought about what his mom had just said. While he did have some interest in reuniting with his mother after Judy's suggestion, he originally only really wanted to just coast through the visit so that he could get through it and get on the train to Bunnyburrow.

However, seeing how much Helen was upset about him leaving affected him more than he would have thought possible, which was strange considering he spent all of his days as a confox pretending that he was comfortable all by himself (outside of Finnick).

With a stunned look on his face, Nick did the only real thing he could think of and rubbed his mother's back with his free paw, comforting her as best as he could.

Eventually, though, she did manage to calm herself down, and once she pulled away, she glared at Nick, her paws on her hips as she waited.

"Well? Is there something you want to say to me?"

Nick's eyes widened a bit, not really expecting the third degree from his mother of all mammals, but he really didn't want to make her any angrier with him than she already was, so after a moment or two of hemming and hawing, he finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry for leaving you, mom. Things kind of fell apart for me after dad left. I didn't mean to upset you."

Even though Helen experienced Nick's problems first hand once John left, she could tell that her son was being genuine.

A smile on her muzzle, she beckoned for Nick to join her as she began making her way back towards the door.

"Come on in! I'll make you some tea."

"Oh no, I really should be going. I've got a train to catch."

"Don't be rude, Nick. Your mother wants to spend time with you."

Both Helen and Nick's heads whipped around to where the source of the new voice was to reveal that it was in fact Judy who had spoken, the young doe standing off to the side so that the two of them could freely speak without interruption.

"Oh, and who's your friend?" she asked as she looked back at Nick.

"Oh, this is Carrots. Carrots, this is my mother Helen Wilde."

"Carrots? That's an interesting name." said Helen as she and Judy shook paws.

"It's not my real name, Mrs. Wilde." said Judy, giving Nick a glare as she spoke. "My actual name's Judy Hopps. Nick's my partner…and sometimes best friend."

Judy could see a bewildered Nick out of the corner of her eye mouth the word 'Sometimes?', but her attention was more on Mrs. Wilde as she registered what she had just said.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I understand where you're going with this. What do you mean by partners?"

"We're both police officers. Did Nick not mention this to you?" she asked, giving Nick a pointed look as she spoke to her.

"He didn't mention anything about him being one, but I do remember hearing about you on the news as well after that incident with the assistant mayor, if I remember correctly."

Helen's expression was unreadable at this point, so Nick had some trouble trying to figure out what she'd thought about that slight. He felt that it would be better not to take any chances, though, so after sharing a hug thanks to the great news of him being a cop, he spoke up.

"Yeah, sorry about not telling you. I was…honestly, I was too scared to do so after what I've done." he said, surprising Judy with the amount of honesty he was showing.

"It's alright, Nicholas. I know you had your reasons."

This admission caught Nick off guard a bit, as he fully expected to have to convince her that there were no bad intentions with him not inviting her to the graduation ceremony.

However, Helen wasn't entirely ready to give up on this line of questioning quite yet.

"I want to hear everything about what I've missed, though."

"Everything?" asked Nick, suddenly nervous.

"Yes, everything. I watched some of the recent graduation ceremony on the news, but I want to hear what's happened even before that!"

Nick clearly did not look thrilled at the prospect of having to tell what amounted to his life story, but he could feel that he was going to be in big trouble if he tried to hide anything from his mom, so after sighing heavily, he gestured with his paw towards the door.

"Let's go then."

Satisfied with Nick's answer, Helen followed behind Nick as they went inside, Judy following close behind as she considered whether it was the best idea for them to do this considering their limited time before the train arrived.

* * *

Inside the house, Helen busied herself by making tea while Nick recounted as much of the big moments that happened in his life that he could remember as Judy sat next to him and listened.

At first, Nick told the story of his time spent with Finnick, and some of what she assumed to be the bigger cons they pulled, and she could see Helen's ear twitch as she listened to what they've gotten themselves in to over the years.

When the story came to when him and Judy first met, though, Judy couldn't help but smile, as everything he'd said was nothing but glowing. What was surprising, though, was that as Nick went through what had happened during the Bellwether case, he'd failed to mention their incident at the hospital and the subsequent apology.

She was admittedly curious as to why he'd omitted that part of the story, but she'd decided to leave that fact alone for the moment, as from what she could tell, Helen had failed to notice anything amiss with his story and she really didn't want to bring it up and make things awkward.

Eventually, after Nick told his mother about his first six months as a police officer, the young tod fell silent, glancing over at Judy next to him as he waited to hear what his mother would think.

"Well, that was certainly a lot to take in." she said, having sat down and drank half of her cup of tea in the time Nick had spent speaking.

"Yeah, it is. Frankly, I wouldn't change it for the world, though. The last year was one of the best I'd had in a while."

Judy couldn't help but feel elated due to Nick's proclamation. Sure, it wasn't entirely sunshine and roses since they'd met over half a year ago, but she had also definitely enjoyed all of the time she'd spent with him, even if there was some times that she wanted to throttle him for one reason or another.

Sighing in contentment as the others sipped their tea, Judy decided to check her phone to see what the time was. As she turned the screen on, though, her expression faltered when she saw what was on there.

"Oh, cheese and crackers, it's already 12:30! We really need to go, Nick."

"Oh, are you leaving already?" asked Helen, her expression a mix of pleasantness and disappointment.

"I apologize, Mrs. Wilde, but we've got a train to catch that leaves in a half an hour, and we don't have much time to lose."

"It's quite alright, Judy. It was a pleasure finally getting to meet you."

"You too, Mrs. Wilde." said Judy, reaching up as she gave Helen a light hug.

As for Nick, he wasn't going to get off as easy as Judy was. After grabbing his bag and making a move towards the door, he was quickly stopped by a paw against his chest.

"Where do you think you're going, mister?"

Nick tried his best to play off this small slight, having originally been planning to sneak out while she wasn't looking.

"Sorry, mom."

Nick gave her one more hug for good measure, but as he made a move to separate from her, she quickly grabbed him by the paw, forcing him to stay where he was as she gave him a stern look.

"You'd better come and visit more often now, or I will come and find you myself."

"Yes, mom." said Nick, now noticeably nervous thanks to the thinly veiled threat.

"Good." said Helen, changing back to her normal sweet self as she gave Nick a kiss on the cheek.

As Nick's cheeks flared up in embarrassment (Judy unable to resist giggling), Helen gave Nick a light pat on the cheek with her paw.

"Now get going, you two. You don't want to be late."

Starting, Nick quickly grabbed his bag, giving Helen his own kiss before the two of them started heading out the door.

"Bye mom!"

Helen waved back as both Nick and Judy waved goodbye, only lowering her paw once the door closed behind them.

Once she knew that they were on their way, she sighed heavily, a mix of emotions as she hoped that she got her message through and Nick would visit more often.

* * *

Back out in the main part of the district, Nick and Judy were anxiously waiting for a bus to arrive.

However, as would soon become apparent, buses never come when you really need them, so after five more minutes had passed, Judy really did not want to risk waiting any longer.

Sighing, she turned towards Nick, who still keeping himself busy was looking around the area for any sign of a bus.

"Hey Nick, do you think we should probably call a taxi?"

"You sure?" asked Nick as he looked back at her. "They can get kind of expensive depending on how far you have to go."

"Well yeah, but it's better to do that than try to wait for the next bus to get here and end up missing the train. At least with a taxi we'd have some control over when we get there."

Nick was still a little unsure of how smart this plan was, but there was really no other option if they wanted to get back to the city in time, so after sighing heavily, he pulled out his phone. Thanking his lucky stars that he remembered to put the taxi company he'd had on speed dial into the new phone he'd gotten after his last one ended up in the water, he quickly hit call and placed the phone up to his ear.

"Yes, hi. I'd like a taxi at the corner of Vine and Willow as soon as possible, please. Thanks. Appreciate it."

After hanging up, Nick sighed as he tucked his phone back into his pocket.

"Guess someone was having a bad day." he said to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Carrots. The taxi should be here in about five minutes or so."

"Oh good!" said Judy, smiling a bit. "I'm guessing they must not be too far, huh?"

"Nope. I used it quite a bit when I was in the area. The guys over there haven't really bothered to learn my name, though. Not too sure why."

Judy had a few ideas considering what she'd heard during Nick's conversation on the phone, but she decided that it was probably best not to voice them and cause problems.

Thankfully, it didn't take too long before a taxi pulled up to their stop just as Nick said they would.

Not wanting to waste time putting their bags in the trunk, the two of them decided to stuff them in the back seat with them. While it did make things a little cramped, neither of them complained as Nick took the lead.

"We need to get down to the train station in Savannah Central as soon as possible. We've got fifteen minutes until our train leaves, so please step on it!"

The driver, an antelope who judging from his expression in the rearview mirror did not look happy, didn't say anything. However, he apparently was listening, as once he pulled out on to the road, Nick could tell that he was going at a faster pace than he remembered them usually going at when he used to use this service.

"So, I'm curious. How come you didn't mention what happened at the hospital to your mom?" asked Judy, unable to take the tense silence that had pervaded through the vehicle.

"I didn't think it was worth mentioning. Besides, I believed you back then when you said it was a mistake, and I still believe you now."

"Okay, I understand that, but to be fair, the way you spoke of me made it seem like I was this perfect little angel that never seems to make any mistakes."

"Well, that wasn't my intention, so I'm sorry if it came across that way. Maybe next time we visit you two can talk a bit."

Judy opened her mouth to say something, but after Nick mentioned the theoretical next visit, she held her tongue.

"Wait…I kind of figured that the whole invitation was for you two to catch up."

"What's wrong with you coming along?" asked Nick, looking down at Judy with an expectant expression on his muzzle.

Once again, Judy held her tongue as she was unable to think of anything, only replying with a shrug.

"See? I'm not going to force you to come along, but I'm not going to stop you if you want to come."

Judy paused, a little caught off guard by Nick's comments.

"Wow. Thanks, Nick. I appreciate the invite."

Nick gave a noise of acknowledgement, and the two of them fell silent for a few more moments before Judy said one more thing that was on her mind.

"You know, I think I'm beginning to like your mom. She's a sweetheart, just like you said."

Nick still didn't reply, only acknowledging her comment with a glance. However, instead of trying to get an actual answer out of him, the two of them simply chose to anxiously await their arrival back in the city, hoping that they would be able to get to the train station on time.


	5. Chapter 5

It was way more of a close call than it needed to be, but thanks to the traffic being cooperative for once, Judy and Nick managed to get to the train station with three minutes to spare.

The two of them rushed out of the taxi with their bags, Judy running ahead while Nick took care of paying the driver, who only acknowledged his presence with a glare.

"Nice guy." said Nick sarcastically, taking a few moments to watch the driver pull out of his parking spot and head back into the city before he quickly rushed after Judy.

Thanks to the fact that Judy had taken the liberty of getting their tickets in advance, they were somehow able to make it on to the train with seconds to spare. The doors even almost closed on Nick's tail, but luckily he was able to pull it out of the way just in time.

As the train finally pulled out of the station, both Judy and Nick took the time to catch their breath, paws on their knees as they dropped their bags on to the floor.

"That was way too close." said Judy.

"Yeah. Let's not do that again, alright?"

"Agreed. But hey, at least we got something good out of that trip, right?"

"I guess so."

Judy was a little disappointed to hear Nick's less than enthusiastic answer about his meeting with his mother, but after a few seconds have passed, Nick managed to pick himself up, a warm look on his muzzle as he looked down at her.

"Thanks for convincing me to go see her, Carrots. I don't know what I would have done if you weren't there to push me."

Judy couldn't help but be a little embarrassed at the gratitude, her ears drooping a bit as she looked away.

"You're welcome." she said, almost mumbling as she blushed slightly.

Nick smiled once he heard Judy's reply. However, before he could actually comment on how adorable she looked, the two of them were accosted by the conductor, an anteater who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else besides there at the moment.

The conductor adjusted his glasses before kneeling down a bit so that he could account for the fact that Judy was still somehow smaller than even him.

"Tickets please." said the anteater in a bored tone.

Caught off guard by the conductor's entrance, it took Judy a few seconds for his request to register. Once it did, though, she quickly pulled out her phone, pulling up the confirmation email so that he could scan the tickets.

"Please take your seats or head up to the observation deck at this time."

Without waiting for an answer from either of them, the conductor quickly left, leaving Judy and Nick to trade looks of confusion.

"Well, he sounds chipper. Wonder what the deal is with everyone today?"

"What do you mean?" asked Nick.

"Well, there's that guy, the taxi driver, and judging from that one call you made, I'm assuming the dispatcher as well."

"I dunno. I guess they all must be having bad days."

Judy clearly did not look convinced, so Nick was forced to elaborate.

"It can happen to anyone! Right?"

"I suppose. Come on, let's head upstairs. The view up there is gorgeous!"

Nick was admittedly a little surprised to see Judy drop the subject so quickly, but he decided to simply take it as a good sign.

Unfortunately, in her haste to get upstairs, Judy forgot to take her bag with her, though, so Nick was forced to carry both of them up the stairs, and with the staircase being as tight as it was, he had to do a lot of finagling to get them both up.

Thankfully, once he did end up managing to make it to the observation deck, his slight annoyance at having to carry the bags was immediately dropped once he got a good look at the glass dome around him.

They were just passing through the Rainforest District when he arrived, and as he walked over to where Judy was and dropped the bags on to a seat, he couldn't help but let his jaw drop as he took in the sights.

"Wow, this is amazing." he said breathlessly.

"I know, right?" she said, beaming. "The first time I took the train here, back when I first moved to Zootopia, I spent the entire ride here just watching the city go by…while listening to some music."

Judy paused, noticing the smirk that her partner had on his muzzle.

"What? It helped set the mood."

"And what kind of mood would that be?" asked Nick playfully.

"Um…peppy, I guess? I was listening to Gazelle." she said, not really expecting Nick to ask that kind of question.

Luckily, Judy didn't really have to elaborate any further, as once she gave her answer; Nick nodded in understanding before returning his attention to his surroundings.

"Man, I should've taken the train more often. I don't know what I've been missing all these years."

"Didn't get out of the city that much, I'm guessing?"

"I never found a need to. Plus, I doubt Mr. Big would have liked it if I tried to skip town."

"Well, it's a good thing that you've gotten your life straightened out now. I'd hate to have to go visit him again, especially after what he did to us last time."

Nick nodded, clearly remembering how close they were to getting iced.

The two of them fell silent for a few more minutes, finally taking a pair of nearby seats so that they could finally rest after the rush to get to the station.

However, it didn't take long before Nick felt the need to say something once more before things got too quiet. Leaning over towards Judy while still resting against the comfortable seats, he quickly thought about something to say while his eyes were barely looking at her.

"So…I know we've kind of delved into it a bit at the bus stop, but what should I expect to see when we get there?"

"You mean besides farm houses and countryside?"

"You know what I mean, Carrots."

Judy managed to somehow pull herself out of the back of her seat as she thought about what to say.

"You know what? I'm not sure. My parents never really got into much detail when we were talking on the phone over the last couple months, so who really knows?"

"Oh good. I've always loved flying wildly into the unknown." said Nick sarcastically.

"Nothing wrong with that. Not knowing what to expect can be a good thing sometimes, right?" asked Judy, looking towards Nick as she spoke.

Nick, however, continued to stare straight ahead as he sighed heavily.

"I guess so. Still, when you've spent so long knowing exactly what you're getting into, not doing that is something to get used to, really."

"See? You really need to start trying some new things sometimes. You'll learn to love life better."

"Oh, and I don't love life right now?" asked Nick, acting offended as he placed his paws on his hips.

"Oh no, I'm not saying that!" said Judy, slightly panicked as she held up her paws in a placating gesture.

"I know, Carrots. I was just messing with you."

Nick couldn't resist a bit of a chuckle after noting how convincing he apparently was judging from the look on his partner's face. Thankfully, he didn't hold it out long enough for it to cause a bit of an awkward scene between the two of them, and they both once again fell silent.

This time, though, Judy decided to pull out her earbuds and phone. As she plugged the buds in and started shuffling through her music library, she quickly looked over towards Nick, wanting to warn him about what she was going to do so she didn't come off as rude.

"Hey Slick, are you alright with me listening to some tunes?" she asked, holding out her phone as she mentally winced with how awkward that sentence came out.

"Knock yourself out, Fluff. I'll be here if you need me."

Satisfied, Judy stuck the buds into her ears and hit play.

As the beginning strains of The Beagles flowed their way into her ears, Judy decided to close her eyes, thinking that she could use a bit of a nap after the long day they've had so far.

As for Nick, with no one else to talk to, he decided to simply enjoy the trip, thinking that he might try and take the train more often if it meant seeing these kinds of views.

* * *

A few hours passed before the train completed its over 200-mile journey to Bunnyburrow. Surprisingly, though, as Judy and Nick disembarked the train, they were surprised to find only around twenty or so of Judy's older siblings there to greet them.

Their presence did unnerve Nick a bit, considering he wasn't used to spending time around large numbers of the same species at once, but he did manage to keep himself together as Judy stepped forwards to greet them.

"Hey, you guys!" she said as she spread her arms wide.

Even if there were only twenty of them, it still looked to Nick like a flood of bunnies were coming in his direction as they crowded around Judy.

However, there was one thing that caught Judy's attention as she scanned her eyes past all of the siblings that were there.

"Hey, where's mom and dad?" she asked, looking towards Jillian, one of her siblings that was only a few years younger than her.

"Dad got held up by a big bumper crop of carrots. We had a lot of rain come through last night, and way more carrots popped up than he expected. I think he's got some of the others helping him back at the farm."

"That's good news. That ought to help the farm for a while." commented Judy as she thought about the amount of carrots that Stu was probably handling right at this moment.

"As for Mom, last I heard she was preparing lunch. Hazel told me that she wanted to make something special since your friend is here. " said Aaron, one of Judy's brothers who had only just started helping around the farm.

Slightly surprised, Judy glanced over towards Nick, who had a bemused smile on his muzzle as he tried to picture just what Mrs. Hopps had in mind when it came to him.

Unfortunately, when she looked back and saw every one of her siblings looking up at Nick with a mixture of pensive and slightly nervous stares thanks to some of Nick's teeth poking through, she quickly went into action.

Thankfully, Nick had also been paying attention as well, quickly closing his muzzle and resolving to be a little more careful, especially considering there were most likely many more bunnies that were way younger than the ones here at the train station who'd take it quite a bit differently.

"Oh! I almost forgot." said Judy, nearly jumping. "Guys, this is Nick, my partner at the ZPD and also my best friend."

Nick luckily had managed to catch the absence of the word 'sometimes' in her description, making a note in his mind to make a snide comment about it later. Now, though, he had to keep up appearances so things started on the right foot with the Hopps family.

Stepping forwards, he reached out a paw as he smiled, this time being careful not to show too much teeth.

"Charmed."

Nick quickly shook paws with a few of the bunnies who were willing to step forwards, trying his best not to take the fact that not everyone wanted to step forwards the wrong way.

After rejoining Judy, she quickly clapped her paws together as she gestured towards the group of bunnies in front of her.

"Okay…now, how are we going to be getting home, if I may ask? Nick and I do have some luggage to take care of."

Nick could clearly see some of the bunnies in the front trade looks, which worried him a bit. However, he remained silent, wanting to know what they had in mind before passing judgement.

The next few seconds were spent in hushed conversations as Judy and Nick watched the bunnies that he caught looking at each other carry on an animated conversation before Gina, Judy's oldest sibling, stepped forwards.

"Well…I don't know if mom or dad told you about this yet, but Brandon just got his driver's license about a week ago."

"Really? Congrats, Brandon." said Judy, impressed as she looked over at Brandon, who was slightly shorter than the others and had on a red polo shirt with an orange stripe along one side.

"It's nothing. Julia helped me out with the test." said Brandon nonchalantly.

"Anyway…"said Gina, trying to get the conversation back on track. "We managed to convince dad to let us borrow his truck to pick you guys up. It's just across the street."

Judy quickly glanced across the street, noticing the same truck that she used to get back to Zootopia after her episode parked right at the front of the parking lot.

Frankly, she was thankful that it was still alright, as once the whole business with Bellwether was dealt with, she was worried that someone might have stolen it from where she'd left it by that subway entrance. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and when she got a chance, she'd returned it to the farm straight away.

"That's great! Come on, let's get out of here."

The group of bunnies led the way as Judy and Nick grabbed their bags, following all of them into the parking lot as the rabbits spread themselves around the truck between the actual seats and the bed in the back.

Unfortunately for Nick and Judy, the lack of room in the front meant that they'd have to spend the ride bouncing around in the bed. The latter wasn't worried, but the former was busy forcing himself to stop thinking about ways he was going to get thrown out of the truck on the road.

"You know, I don't think I'm ever going to remember all of these names over the week." commented Nick as him and Judy pulled themselves into the truck bed, Nick holding on tight as the truck pulled out of the spot.

"I don't expect you to, Slick." said Judy, smirking a bit. "Frankly, I'd be wondering where the real Nick Wilde was if you could actually remember them all."

"Hey, there's only one Nick Wilde in this town, and you're looking at him." said Nick, matching Judy's smirk with one of his own.

Judy thankfully didn't say anymore, choosing instead to shake her head and chuckle at Nick's attempt at posturing.

As for Nick, he was surprisingly eager to see what was in store for him once they reached the Hopps farm, even after word of the carrot crop. Then again, he wasn't exactly sure what bumper crop actually meant, so in his mind it didn't seem all that bad.

And so, Judy and Nick continued to make their way down the road, finally ready to get this well-earned vacation started.


	6. Chapter 6

The truck soon pulled up to the Hopps family farm, but at a speed that no one would have expected to have gone out in the countryside.

Thankfully, they did manage to get the truck to a stop where it was usually parked, but as Nick and Judy got out of said truck with the other bunnies in tow, Judy couldn't help but giggle when she looked over at Nick and saw his nerves frazzled and his shirt crinkled.

"Carrots, remind me never to ride in the back of a truck again."

"What…too rough for you?" she teased.

"Yep. Where did that kid learn to drive, anyway?" said Nick, completely missing the tone thanks to him being too busy looking presentable.

"Sorry." said Gina, inserting herself between the two of them. "I completely forgot to mention that Brandon only barely passed his test."

"Only barely? What the heck did he do to convince the instructor to pass him?"

"Who knows? I took him there, but he wouldn't tell me anything past what I'd already told you."

Nick sighed heavily, turning towards Judy.

"Carrots, if for some reason I ever decide to get in a car with him again, would you mind writing my will for me?"

"You haven't done yours yet?" asked Judy, slightly confused. "I already had mine planned out not too long after I joined the force. Can't be too careful, really."

Nick paused, his muzzle open as he prepared to answer. However, he soon realized that this never really came to his mind, and his muzzle closed as he looked away from her, the thought of being killed in the line of duty very sobering to him.

Thankfully, after letting it register a bit, Nick was able to get himself back to normal, although his expression was a little more subdued compared to when he first got off of the truck.

Instead of actually answering, though, he simply shrugged, not trusting himself to come up with a suitable way to explain himself.

Luckily, Judy was more than understanding even though she was a bit disappointed that Nick wasn't being as proactive as she was.

"That's alright if you don't have it ready yet." she said, pausing for a second before she suddenly got an idea. "Hey, I know! If we get some time during this week, I'll help you!"

Nick didn't seem completely thrilled with the idea of spending some of his valuable vacation time writing out a long document, but if it meant not having to deal with Judy's constant badgering about the subject; he was more than willing to suffer through it just to get it over with.

"Okay, I suppose that sounds good." said Nick, adopting a half-smile so Judy didn't get any ideas.

The two of them fell silent as they made their way up to the Hopps' farm house. The silence was soon broken very quickly, however, when Nick found out just what was inside.

* * *

"Oh my god…"

There was a hint of amusement in Nick's voice as he registered what he was met with when he, Judy and the older Hopps siblings made their way inside. That amusement was only a small part of what was a mix of panic and shock, though, when the door closed behind him and he'd realized what he'd done.

Even though the room was quite spacious, to Nick it still felt like there was a sea of bunnies in front of him in all shapes and sizes, and almost all of them were staring right at him.

Nervous, Nick started backing away from them, but he had no chance as he was quickly buried under an avalanche of fluff, the younger bunnies crawling all around the newcomer as Nick desperately tried to come up for air.

"Carrots…help…"

Judy clearly heard Nick's call for assistance right when he'd said it, but she took a few moments to stand there amused as she watched the carnage unfold.

Eventually, she did decide to make a move to help pull Nick out, but somehow she was beaten to the punch when a shrill whistle pierced its way through the room.

"Alright, everyone! Lunch is ready!"

The sea of bunnies quickly cleared out of the room, leaving Nick alone on the floor, clutching his chest as he gulped in any amount of air he could get.

As Gina helped Nick to his feet, Judy looked over to where the whistle came from, and as she craned her neck to see over the still filing in other bunnies, her face lit up when she saw who was ushering them all in.

"Mom!"

Rushing forwards, she quickly enveloped Bonnie in a hug once the older Hopps was free.

"Oh, my little hon-bun, I'm so glad you guys were able to make it all the way out here."

"I wouldn't have missed getting the chance to see you guys for the world, mom." said Judy, smiling. "But really, this whole trip was actually Nick's idea."

"Oh, really? That's interesting." said Bonnie, a pleasantly surprised look on her face as she thought that Judy had somehow managed to drag Nick along judging from their call last night. "And where did this all come from?"

"It's…kind of a long story." said Judy, cringing as she hoped that Bonnie wouldn't ask her to elaborate.

Thankfully, she was saved from having to explain herself when Nick appeared at her side, once again looking like he'd had a bad fur day as clumps were sticking out every which way.

"Ah, and you must be Nicholas!" said Bonnie, her attention diverted when she noticed the fox in their midst.

"A pleasure, Mrs. Hopps. And I prefer just being called Nick, if that's alright with you. Nicholas makes me sound old." he said as he shook paws with her.

"Oh, of course. Nick it is, then. By the way, I don't know if any of the young'uns who picked you up mentioned this, but I made something a little special for you once you two got here."

"They did, actually, and I'm kind of curious to see what it is." said Nick, resisting the urge to let his muzzle water as he pictured the possibilities.

"Well then, follow me into the dining room and I'll show you!" said Bonnie, smiling warmly as she gestured towards the room she had just come out of.

By this time, all of the younger bunnies had already filed into the dining room, and while Nick was admittedly a little worried about what he was stepping into, when he actually stepped inside, he was definitely surprised by what he saw in front of him.

The dining room was more like the size of a dining hall, with tables spread out all across the room filled with all of the kids as they dug in to a practical smorgasbord of food.

"Wow, Mrs. Hopps, I'm kind of surprised that you're able to handle this much work." commented Nick as he scanned around the room and took in the sights. "I don't think I'd even be able to manage ten percent of this."

"Well, when you've got two hundred and seventy five mouths to feed, you kind of have to think on your feet sometimes." said Bonnie.

"You sure did."

Bonnie couldn't help but giggle at the compliment, turning towards Judy as she spoke.

"Your friend here is such a gentlemammal. I was kind of worried about what he'd be like when you said you were bringing him along, but I can see why you're spending so much time with him."

"Well, he can be a pain sometimes, but yeah, he's still a really great friend."

"Oh, just a friend? I thought there was something more than that."

It took a few seconds for the implications to settle in, but once it did, Judy quickly blushed red.

"Mom! It's not like that! Nick and I are just friends."

Bonnie looked like she didn't believe her daughter for a second, but she knew quite well just how stubborn Judy could get in an argument, so she quickly dropped the subject.

"Alright, if you say so. Now, how about we go eat before the kids take everything for themselves?"

Judy was still a little wary about Bonnie's motives, but she shrugged and allowed the subject to drop, walking forwards and giving Nick a light push.

"Come on, Slick, quit gawking and let's eat. I haven't had anything since this morning!"

Nick, having been too occupied with everything happening around him, didn't notice the small conversation going on between the two bunnies behind him, so he wasn't sure exactly why Judy was acting so flippant.

With all of the noise going on, though, he really had no chance to ask her about it, so he decided to remain silent, choosing instead to follow Judy and Bonnie as they made their way to one of the tables.

The two of them soon sat down, and as Nick looked around, he recognized some of the siblings that were there to pick him and Judy up were sitting there with him. However, there was another rabbit sitting at the table with him, a much older gentlemammal who looked like he was giving him the evil eye, and it made Nick quite uncomfortable.

"Hey Carrots, who's the old guy over there?" he whispered as he leaned over towards Judy.

Judy clearly didn't look happy after hearing the less than polite description, giving Nick a light glare before answering his question.

"That's my grandfather. His name's Otto, but we usually call him Pop-Pop." she said, quickly cringing when she'd realized what she'd said.

Predictably, Nick pounced on the silly nickname, unable to resist giggling like a hyena as he slapped his knee to emphasize just how funny he found it.

"Wow, Pop-Pop? I've heard of some crazy nicknames for relatives before, but this one takes the cake."

Judy quietly fumed while Nick continued to laugh, but unfortunately for Nick, Otto was somehow able to discern the gist of what was transpiring in front of him thanks to him being laser focused on what Nick was doing.

It was slow going thanks to being as old as he was, but Otto somehow managed to pull himself out of his chair, slowly walking his way to the head of the table as he planted himself between Judy and Nick.

"Hey Trudy! Who's this troublemaker next to you?"

Judy could see Nick confusedly mouth the word troublemaker from his position behind Otto, but thankfully the old rabbit's attention was completely on her, so he either didn't notice or was trying his best to ignore him.

"Grandpa, this is my friend Nick." said Judy, gesturing towards the fox in question even though she looked like she really didn't want to be in the room at this moment.

Otto quickly glanced over at Nick, who waved meekly. This wave was met with a look of disgust before Otto began making his way back to his seat, muttering to himself.

"I can't believe what this family's come to, associating with foxes. They're only red because they're made by the devil!"

"Grandpa, that's offensive!" said Judy, clearly hearing him thanks to Otto failing to keep his musings quiet enough.

Unfortunately, Otto was barely paying attention considering he was too busy trying to get back to his seat. It ended up getting to the point that Bonnie had to step in and help him out.

"Dad, you know how I don't like it when you start moving around without me knowing. You can get hurt."

Once again, Otto was in the middle of his under breath rantings about Nick's presence in their house, so Bonnie warnings went unrecognized, so she was forced to simply return him to his seat before continuing on with serving the food, which she was in the middle of when this incident happened.

"Hey Mom, where's Dad at?" asked Judy when Bonnie passed by her, having noticed the absence of the Hopps family patriarch. "I kind of figured he'd be done with that crop by now."

"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. Last time I was outside, your father said he was almost done with it, but that was a half an hour ago."

"Weird. It must be way bigger than he thought it was."

"Well, he's got Jeffrey and Daniel working with him, so I'm hoping he gets back soon. He's going to miss lunch."

With that, Bonnie slipped by Judy's seat to where Nick was, placing a separate plate nearby.

Curious, Nick craned his neck to see what it was, and when he finally got a clear look, his muzzle started to water when he saw just what it was.

"Is that…a blueberry pie, Mrs. H?" he asked.

"Why, yes it is. Judy mentioned how much you liked our blueberries, so I cooked up a fresh batch for all of you guys to share."

Nick, unable to resist the succulent flavors emitting from the dish, attempted to reach over and grab the pie so he could dig in. However, he didn't get far, as his paw was quickly slapped by Bonnie's as the matriarch made to prevent him from taking it for himself.

"Not until you eat the rest of your food. And no hogging it all to yourself, either."

Nick looked quite disappointed after being rejected like this, cradling his stinging paw. Both Judy and Bonnie knew how crafty foxes could be, though, so after giving Nick her warnings, Bonnie quickly turned towards Judy.

"Keep an eye on him, Judy. If you see him try to go for the pie before he's finished, you have my permission to tie him down to the chair."

"Roger that!" said Judy, saluting.

This earned a bit of a giggle from Bonnie before she finally made her way back to the kitchen to bring out the rest of the food.

Once she was far enough away so that she wouldn't be able to hear or see what he was doing, Nick glanced over at Judy before reaching over to grab the pie.

"You'd better not, Slick. Not unless you want to spend the rest of lunch hopping around the room tied to a chair."

"Oh yeah? I don't see any rope around, Carrots." said Nick, smug.

Nick clearly thought that he'd called Judy's bluff, but as he would learn to regret later, the Hopps family was incredibly resourceful, as Judy quickly pointed out a coil of rope located in the corner of the room.

"Wow, really?" asked Nick, giving Judy a weird look. "Who keeps rope in their dining room?"

"When you've seen a bunny on a sugar rush, I think you'll understand why."

Nick was admittedly a little puzzled at first, but after a few seconds thought, he soon realized that Judy did have a point.

Reluctantly, Nick managed to tear his eyes away from the pie long enough for him to dig in to a carrot loaf, which while it wasn't something he would normally eat, it was actually pretty good.

Eventually, Nick's plate was empty, even surprising Judy as she was expecting at least a bit of a fuss.

It didn't take too much longer, either, for Nick to cut a piece of the pie for himself, briefly glancing at the remaining pie as he wished that he could have more.

Thankfully, though, once he took a bite, those wishes were immediately forgotten when his taste buds exploded in flavor.

"Oh god, this is heavenly. Where have I been all this time that I've never tasted this before?" he said, his voice slightly garbled due to the chunk of pie still in his maw.

"Well, my mom does make one of the best pies in the Burrows outside of Gideon Grey." said Judy, amused as she watched Nick enjoy the piece.

"Oh yeah? And when am I going to meet this Gideon?"

"Probably soon. We are here for a week, remember?"

Nick quickly nodded before taking another bite, once again savoring the taste before swallowing.

His bliss was soon broken, however, when another bunny walked up to where they were sitting, and when Nick saw who it was, he nervously gulped.

"Dad! You're here!"

* * *

 **Another research note! I know that the Disney Wiki mentions that the directors went back and forth on which one of the parents were actually related to Otto by blood, so it's not entirely clear, but for the purposes of this story, I decided to go with Bonnie being his daughter, as you've already seen.**


	7. Chapter 7

Even with the constant noise going on around them while lunch was still going on, it still felt to Nick like there was a vacuum around him, the sheer lack of sound becoming unnerving as he watched Stu Hopps greet his daughter one seat away from him.

"Jude the Dude! Glad to see you've finally decided to come visit your family."

"Dad, seriously, you know I can't just drop everything to come all the way out here. I've got a job to do." said Judy, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

"I know, I know. I'm just playing with you."

Stu then playfully ruffled the fur on Judy's head, smiling when he noticed the grin on his daughter's face.

Eventually, Stu's attention turned to the mammal next to her, and that was when Nick's eyes widened, as he wondered just how Stu would react to seeing him.

A few seconds passed as Stu and Nick stared eye-to-eye at each other, getting to the point where even Judy could feel the supposed tension going on between the two of them.

As for Nick, he couldn't stop staring at the mix of emotions going on in Stu's eyes. Nick prided himself on being able to read most mammals like an open book thanks to his hustling days. That wasn't the case with Stu, though, as his eyes remained impassive.

Thankfully for Nick, spending so much time with Judy helped him to learn some tells when it came to her species, and after looking down at Stu's nose, he could see the buck trying to resist the urge to let it twitch.

Soon enough, the silence at the table was starting to get to Nick, so he knew he had to do something before someone else had to step in and get them to coexist, so after a few seconds of sizing him up, Nick reached out with his paw.

"Uh, glad to meet you, Mr. Hopps. I'm Nick Wilde, Judy's partner."

Nick was glad that his introduction went smoothly, as he was admittedly worried that he say something that would screw things up immediately. However, what Stu did next caught even the normally unflappable Nick off guard.

"Dad, no!" shouted Judy as she watched Stu quickly reach into his pocket.

Nick didn't move, as he was fully expecting to get a face full of fox spray or one of those other Fox-Away products that he remembered Judy carrying on her back when they first met.

To his surprise, though, that move ended up being a fake out, as the next thing Nick knew, his paw was clasped inside Stu's as the two of them shook.

"How do you do? I'm Stu Hopps, the father of this family."

"God Dad, you nearly gave me a heart attack! I almost thought you were going to taze Nick!" said Judy, desperately trying to will herself to calm down after the scare she received.

"Oh come on, Jude, did you really think I was going to do that? I figured that after seeing what we've been doing with Gideon, you'd get the idea." said Stu playfully.

"True, but the way you were acting during our call yesterday made it seem like things were different."

"Oh, that was only because I didn't know Nick as well as I knew Gid."

Judy didn't look too happy with how Stu's explanation felt insufficient, but after a few seconds have passed, Stu kneeled down, placing both of his paws on Judy's shoulders as they met eyes.

"Don't worry, Jude. I promise that your friend is welcome in this house no matter the circumstances."

Judy could see Nick look relieved after Stu's declaration, but the relief was short lived after what Stu said next.

"I'm not one to give guests a free ride, though. You're gonna have to earn your keep."

"And what would that entail?" asked Nick, catching Stu's attention as the buck turned to face him.

"Why, good old-fashioned hard work, of course!"

"Excuse me?"

Nick looked slightly perturbed at the implications of what Stu had just said, but thankfully his facial expression was subtle enough that no one actually noticed.

"You heard me. Sure, I'm not going to need you all week, but I could really use some extra paws while the older kids are away. Don't worry, I'll let you know when you're needed."

Without even waiting for a reply from a flabbergasted Nick, Stu gave him a light pat on the shoulder before heading into the kitchen.

Stunned, Nick barely noticed Judy shuffling a little closer to him. She quickly snatched a piece of the pie while he was busy, but while she dug in to her piece, she couldn't help but tease him a little.

"Did you really think you could get away with not having to put some work in here?" she asked, pointing her fork at him.

"Well, that is what a vacation entails, Carrots. Not having to do work."

Nick was finally brought back to reality after having his episode, and while he did notice the fact that Judy had swiped a piece of his pie, he thought better than to try and steal it back. Instead, he placed his paws over his eyes, letting out a low growl of exasperation before sliding his paws over his head, his ears flicking back into place once they were free from his grasp.

"You ready to go, Carrots?" he asked, his expression brightening in an attempt to hide from Judy what he was truly feeling about how things were going.

Unfortunately, Judy's attention was fixated on what Nick was going through before his mask went back into place, and he couldn't help but be a little worried.

"You alright, Nick?"

"Oh yeah. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you didn't look too happy about having to work."

Judy could tell that Nick wasn't satisfied with her answer, so she quickly sighed before elaborating.

"Look, I know my dad can be a bit difficult sometimes, but he's got an entire farm as well as two hundred and seventy five kids to look after with mom. Frankly, he needs all the help he can get."

"I understand completely, Fluff. There's no need to explain it any further."

Judy didn't look convinced, but she held her tongue, as she really didn't want to get this vacation started on the wrong note, so after taking the last bite of her pie, she hopped off of her seat as she turned to face Nick.

"So, what did you want to do while we've got free time?" she asked as she went to pick up her plate.

"I don't know. I suppose we could take a walk around town. You can show me around."

"Oh, that actually sounds fun."

After picking up his plate (he was too much of a gentlemammal to let anyone else take care of it), Nick followed Judy as the two of them made their way into the kitchen which, while it was only half the size of the dining room, it was still quite spacious compared to kitchens that Nick had seen back in the city.

He could barely manage to resist marveling at the size of the room just like he did before, but luckily he kept himself under control as him and Judy made their way over to a large sink, where Bonnie and some of the older female rabbits were busying themselves with cleaning the dishes.

"Mom, Nick and I are going out for a bit. I was going to show him around town."

"Sounds good, hun-bun. Don't take too long, though. Your father has some deliveries that he wants you and Nick to take care of later tonight."

Judy glanced over at Nick, quickly noticing the nonplussed look that he had on his muzzle before turning back towards her mother.

"Okay. We'll be back soon!"

Judy quickly headed back out of the kitchen and into the dining room, forcing Nick to jog a bit to keep up with her.

* * *

Thankfully, though, getting out of the dining room this time proved to be much easier than it was initially, as while the two of them were in the kitchen, the lunch period was winding down, so most of the other family members were filing into the kitchen to hand over their plates.

Nick and Judy's journey through the foyer proved to be relatively short, as most of the family were now outside by the time they came through.

Judy led the way as the two of them made their way out of the Hopps home, Nick taking the time to take in the sights as they walked through the countryside.

"You know, this feels kind of nice."

"I know, right?" said Judy, turning her head to face Nick. "Don't get me wrong, Zootopia's nice, but nothing beats the countryside, at least in my opinion."

"Is that right? Well, how about I take your beautiful countryside and raise you the entirety of the Rainforest District? Then we'll see what's better."

"Oh, I see how it is. I'm not going to fall for your tricks, Wilde. Besides, at least the weather in the Burrows isn't eighty percent rain."

"Touché."

Nick tried to quickly come up with something else better than spending time in the countryside, but unfortunately for him, he didn't get much of a chance after he was pulled out of his thoughts by Judy speaking up.

"Oh good, we're here! Welcome to the main square of Bunnyburrow!"

Nick noted Judy's chipper tone when introducing him to where they were standing, but there was one thing that was going through his mind when he looked around the area and saw the old-style buildings and other parts of town.

"Wow, this looks…homely." he said, unable to think of another word to describe it without offending Judy.

"Well, what do you expect? We like our traditions."

"And there's nothing wrong with that."

Judy nodded, agreeing with Nick's statement.

"Come on, I'll introduce you to some of the others here."

And she did so, leading Nick throughout the town as she introduced him to most of the important mammals around town.

While some of them were a little wary, considering most of them were bunnies, and their only real experience with foxes was with Gideon Grey, they all gave Nick a warm welcome. Some of them even did it in their own special way.

For instance, the mayor of Bunnyburrow, a hare by the name of Robert Cotton, specifically came out of his office to greet him once word spread of his presence. Even Judy was surprised, as outside of special events, Mayor Cotton only rarely comes out of City Hall during business hours, most likely thanks to the amount of work he has to do.

Eventually, the two of them came up to what was the final stop on her tour, and as Nick read the sign above the door, he couldn't help but be surprised as to where they were going.

"Gideon Grey's Good Baked Stuff." he said to himself, pausing as he connected the dots. "You never told me this Gideon was a baker, Carrots."

Puzzled, Judy racked her brain to remember all the times she mentioned Gideon to him, soon realizing that she in fact never mentioned that fact.

"Huh, I guess I didn't. Sorry about that. It never came up."

"It's alright. Shall we head in?"

Judy looked down at Nick's outstretched paw, which was pointed towards the door, before looking up at his face. Even though she was a little wary, Nick's expression did look genuine, so she wasn't too worried about whether Nick took it the wrong way.

Stepping forwards, Judy opened the door and went through, marveling at all of the sights inside as Nick followed close behind.

As the two of them stepped up to the counter, Nick finally got a chance to see what Gideon looked like. While he was kind of glad that he wasn't going to be the only fox here during the week, he was a little bit surprised with how Gideon actually looked.

It may have been because Nick was so used to foxes being thin, but seeing just how…portly Gideon was caught him off guard a bit.

Thankfully, he didn't have any more time to dwell on that fact, as the bell over the doorway signaled to Gideon that there was a customer, and as he turned around, he smiled when he saw the two mammals in front of him.

"Well, look who we have here! Didn't expect to see you come by, Judy. I thought you were busy busting crooks out there in the big city." he said, his southern drawl as clear as day.

"Well, I still am. I'm just here on vacation for the week."

"That's good. I can't imagine how some mammals can do that kind of work for that long, to be honest."

Gideon's sobering thought was interrupted when he got a good look at Nick. He could see a smile form on Gideon's muzzle before he spoke up.

"So who's your friend here?" he asked as he made his way out from behind the counter.

"Oh! This is Nick Wilde. He's my partner on the force." said Judy, slightly embarrassed when she realized that she nearly forgot about Nick.

"Well, I'm glad to see a fellow fox around here for once. Gideon Grey, glad to meet you."

The two foxes shook paws as Nick couldn't help but voice a thought he had.

"Nice place you got here."

"You think so?" asked Gideon, slightly embarrassed. "I saved up enough money from my delivery service to buy this building a couple of months ago. I tried to spruce it up as best as I could, but I keep feeling like I could do something more."

"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself, Gid. This place is really nice. Besides, I'm sure the townsfolk aren't going to be all that worried about the décor when you have the quality of baked goods like you do."

Judy's mention of baked goods actually ended up piquing Nick's interest, and as Judy and Gideon were in the middle of their conversation, Nick wandered over to the counter where there were products on display. When he got there, though, his maw started to water when he saw just how delicious they looked.

"See anything you like, Nick?" asked Gideon, having noticed Nick's disappearance.

Nick stood up, looking over at the other two as he briefly considered what to say.

"Do you happen to have anything with…blueberries, by any chance?"

"Why, yes I do!" said Gideon, barely noticing Judy's exasperated look in his haste to make the sale.

"Seriously, Nick? We just ate an hour ago!"

Unfortunately for Judy, Nick was barely paying attention to her, as by the time she spoke up, Gideon was already pointing out some of his blueberry-filled pastries to him, and Nick looked eager enough to buy them all.

Luckily, or should I say unluckily, before Nick could actually go through with the sale, a ferret burst through the door without warning, catching all three of them off guard.

"Travis? What are you doing here this late?" asked Gideon.

Travis didn't even acknowledge Gideon's question, though, as his attention was on Nick and Judy, and when he finally explained the reasoning behind his sudden appearance, he said something that neither of them would have ever expected to happen.

"You're police officers, right? Come quick! There's been a robbery!"


	8. Chapter 8

Travis's sudden entrance caught practically everyone in the room off guard, but thankfully it didn't take long for someone to take action, as Judy stepped forwards to meet him.

"Now, I'm going to need you to calm down for a moment, Travis, and explain to me just what you're talking about, alright?"

Judy's soothing tone did the trick, although it did take a few moments for the ferret to actually follow through with calming down.

"Okay…okay, I'm good."

"Go on." said Judy, smiling despite wishing in the back of her mind that she had something to record this.

"I just saw someone running out of the general store with a bag over their shoulder! I think I've seen enough movies to know what that usually means."

Worried, Judy traded looks with Nick, the fox gesturing for her to continue. Whether it was because he noticed how well she was doing getting answers or just not being interested in asking his own questions, she didn't know. However, she wasn't too worried about that fact, as there was a more pressing matter in front of her.

Turning back towards Travis, Judy kneeled down, which frankly was a rare occurrence for her when dealing with witnesses outside of the denizens of Little Rodentia. But she had somehow managed to outgrow the ferret, and she knew that getting down to their level was a useful tactic for asking questions like these.

"Did you happen to see what the suspect looked like?"

Even though Judy was a little worried about if she would even remember the details considering her lack of note taking ability, her zeal in getting all of the details she could overrode that worry.

She didn't even need to worry about it in the first place, though, as Travis quickly shook his head, his crooked whiskers bouncing around as he went through the motions.

"I was too busy trying to save my own skin. The guy had a gun, for Pete's sake!"

This definitely caught Judy's attention, and she could tell that Nick was worried as well considering how dark the air in the room got at that point. While Judy was well aware that guns weren't as widely regulated in the Triburrows compared to back in Zootopia, the fact that there were still some around greatly unnerved the two officers.

There was one thought, though, that bugged Nick more than anything as he listened to Travis speak, and as soon as the tenseness in the air evaporated a bit, he chose that point to voice his concerns.

"Travis, right? Now, I'm not trying to accuse you or anything, but if there actually was a robbery that had just occurred, wouldn't there be an alarm going off right now? I mean, this part of town isn't all that big, so I'm pretty sure we'd be able to hear it from over here."

"The general store doesn't have any alarms, Nick."

The answer came from a source Nick didn't expect, and as his head whipped around to where it came from, he saw that it was actually Gideon who'd spoken.

"Seriously? Then how do they stop mammals from doing whatever they want to them?" he asked, shocked.

"Shotguns, mostly. I haven't heard anyone actually use them in this town for years, but it does serve as a mighty nice deterrent."

"That is, unless the perpetrator has a gun of his own." commented Judy.

"Nothing's ever perfect."

Nick remained silent as he listened to Judy and Gideon's explanation, pinching the bridge of his muzzle as he shut his eyes tight for a few moments to relieve the headache that was coming on.

Eventually, though, his eyes opened once more, and he set his sights on Travis, one more question on his mind.

"Okay, so can you explain to me why you decided to come to us instead of going to the police? I'm sure they would be more equipped to handle a case like this better than two off duty officers on vacation in this town. Come to think of it, how did you even know we were here?"

"Nick, be nice!" chided Judy quietly.

Travis looked like he was barely paying any attention to the way Nick was acting, though, as he quickly launched into his explanation without missing a beat.

"Well, Gid told me that Judy was a cop a while back. I saw her in here while I was running by, so I decided that she was the best option I've got."

"Hang on, why was I the best option? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the gesture, but as Nick said, it would have been better to go to the Sheriff's office first."

"I did, though! I tried to tell them what I saw, but they told me that they're swamped with all of the other robberies that have gone on!" he said, frantic.

This came as a surprise to both officers. Judy quickly got off of her knees as Nick stayed where he was, a bewildered look on his muzzle.

"Slow down. Did you say 'other robberies'?"

Travis nodded vigorously.

It was then that Judy looked back towards Nick, who remained silent as he fixed Judy with an impassive look.

"We've got to help, Nick!"

"Carrots, we're on vacation. This is what the whole point of a vacation entails. Not having to do work."

"This is more than 'just work', Nick." said Judy, turning around to face him as she spoke. "This is protecting my home. Just imagine how many more robberies will go down if we don't find out who did this!"

Nick held his composure as best as he could in an attempt to get her to back down, but Judy wasn't a feisty bunny for no reason, as she stared Nick down, refusing to drop her determined look for even a moment.

Defeated, Nick sighed, lowering his gaze as he brushed a paw over his head, letting his ears flap back into place before speaking once more.

"Alright, if it'll make you happy, I'll help."

Satisfied, Judy nodded and turned back towards Travis. She could hear Nick audibly sigh behind her, but she ignored that in favor of sending the ferret on his way.

"Thank you so much for the help, Travis. If you happen to find out anything else that can help us, please don't hesitate to come see us. We're going to be in town for the rest of the week."

Travis nodded, showing he understood. After waving a quick goodbye to Gideon, Travis made his way out of the shop. As soon as he disappeared around the corner, Judy quickly made her way over to Nick.

Even though Nick currently wanted to be anywhere besides where he was right now, he couldn't help but smile a bit after noticing the look on Judy's face, an expression that he usually calls 'cop mode'. This was an expression she usually adopted when nothing else would get in the way of her completing what was laid out in front of her, and this was no different.

"What do you say we go head over to the Sheriff's office? I'd like to speak with him and see what he knows about this string of robberies."

Nick was more than prepared to answer in the affirmative, but before he could do so, he took a look at the clock hung just above the front door and nearly jumped when he saw what time it was.

"Hey, I'd love to go along with your little plan, Carrots, but it's getting late. It's almost dinner time, and your mom did say that there were some deliveries that your dad needed us to do, right?"

Judy glanced over at the front door, and Nick could see 'cop mode' quickly get disengaged as Judy realized just how dark it was getting.

"Oh cheese and crackers, you're right. I guess we'll probably save it for tomorrow, then."

"Have a good night, Gid." said Nick, waving goodbye to the portly fox as he quickly led Judy out of the shop before she could change her mind.

"G'night, you two." said Gideon quickly, smiling.

His smile soon disappeared after they vanished, though. Looking down at his open paw, he stared at a decent-sized burn on his paw pad before deciding to close the store early, pulling his shirt sleeve down when he noticed something poking out from under the fabric. It's been a long day for him, and he was looking forwards to getting home.

* * *

Judy and Nick managed to get back to the Hopps family farm after about a half an hour of walking. However, just as they went inside and heard the cacophony of noise coming from the dining room where most of the family was no doubt having dinner, the two of them were met by none other than Stu Hopps, sitting in a nearby chair as he waited for the two of them to return.

Judy was admittedly curious as to why her dad wasn't with the rest of the family, but as she got a good look at the nonplussed look on the buck's face, a bad feeling formed in the pit of her stomach.

"I'm sorry we were so late, Dad. We got held up in town by something important." she said, worried. "Is there anything we can do to make up for missing the delivery time?"

It turns out that Stu only had that look on his face because he'd zoned out, as once Judy had spoken up, he was pulled roughly out of his thoughts, suddenly realizing who was standing in front of him.

"Oh, there you are! I was wondering when you guys would be getting back." he said, smiling.

Caught off guard, Judy tried her best to read her dad's expression, hoping that she could figure out if Stu was trying to hide something, but unfortunately for her, nothing came up.

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" she asked. "I figured that you'd be eating dinner with everyone else. Wait, is this about the delivery?"

Judy couldn't help but be puzzled, wondering just what was going through her dad's mind. Thankfully for her Stu's expression remained as it was as he spoke up.

"Oh no, you two are fine. I got a call from the Catmulls while you two were gone. Turns out they had to go out of town for a day or two unexpectedly and pushed back the delivery date."

"I guess Bobby must have gone with them, huh?"

"I believe so."

Judy glanced over at Nick, shrugging before returning her attention back to her dad.

"So, if it's not about the delivery, then what are you doing out here?"

It was then that Judy noticed how uncomfortable Stu looked, and she couldn't help but be a little worried. However, before she could actually ask about what was going on, Stu beat her to the punch.

"I'd actually like to speak with Nick. Alone…if that's alright with you, Jude."

This puzzled Judy greatly, as she had no idea of what kind of thing was so important that she couldn't be in the room with the two of them. However, as much as she wanted to know about what was going on, she was also taught to respect her dad's wishes from a young age, so after glancing over at Nick one more time, she went into the dining hall, leaving the two males alone to talk.

* * *

Surprisingly, an entire half an hour passed without any word from what was going on outside of the dining hall, and Judy couldn't help but feel nervous.

She spent most of dinner time picking at her food, only taking bites every so often, and even then it was barely substantial. The rest of the time was spent staring at the doorway into the family room, waiting to see if either Nick or Stu would come through so she could find out what exactly needed this amount of privacy.

Thankfully, it only took until most of the other family members started filing into the kitchen to drop off their plates before Nick came in, taking a seat next to Judy as he grabbed a plate of food.

"So…what was that all about?" she asked, the noise having dropped down to a level where she didn't have to worry about shouting any more.

A piece of quiche was halfway to Nick's maw whenever Judy asked her question, forcing the piece of food to remain in place so that he could actually give his answer.

"Oh, it was nothing. Your dad just wanted to apologize for the way he acted this afternoon."

This admission caught Judy off guard, as what actually happened did not mesh with why she needed to not be in the room with them.

Reaching over, Judy placed her paw on top of Nick's, lightly pushing downwards until the fork and still uneaten piece of quiche returned to the plate.

Annoyed at being denied a chance to eat, Nick turned to Judy, but the look immediately disappeared when he saw the look that she had on.

"Explain. Now."

"I told you it was nothing, really. All he really wanted to say was that he shouldn't have tried to force me to help him out on the farm. He left it up to me if I wanted to, and I said I would."

Nick quickly noticed Judy's expression morph into one of confusion, which forced him to elaborate.

"What? Did you really think I would be someone who tries to escape hard work when I'm given the choice?"

"No! No, I wasn't." said Judy, quickly holding up her paws in a placating gesture. "I just…this morning you looked like you wanted nothing to do with having to work outside."

"Oh! Well…alright."

"However, this still doesn't explain why it took forty-five minutes to get through, or even why I needed to be in a different room entirely."

"It was a very long –winded apology. Plus, we spent a lot of time hashing things out between us. As for why you weren't there, unfortunately I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Your dad didn't want me to. He said it was a 'private matter'." he said, accentuating his words with finger quotes.

Judy once again couldn't help but be puzzled, but before she could really try to figure out what the deal was, Nick spoke up once more.

"Besides, he wouldn't tell me either."

"That's weird." said Judy, glancing off towards the living room where she last saw Stu.

As she finally dug into her food, she could hear a grunt of agreement coming from Nick's end, no doubt due to the fact that he'd finally dug in himself.

The two of them ate in silence before bringing their plates in just as Bonnie was finishing up the last of the dishes.

"Hey mom, where's Nick going to sleep, anyway?" asked Judy as she and Nick handed their plates over.

"In the guest room downstairs."

"Okay, cool."

However, just as she was about to lead Nick down to said room, Bonnie suddenly spoke up once more, as she turned to face the two of them.

"Oh, I almost forgot to mention. You do remember a couple of months ago when we called you about our new arrivals, right?"

"Yeah, I do." said Judy, ignoring Nick's look of confusion as he mouthed what Bonnie had just said.

"Well, unfortunately we had to move Danielle into your old room, so we set up a sleeping bag in the guest room. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh no, I don't mind! It was bound to happen eventually, right?"

"Exactly. Sorry to spring this on to you so quickly, hun-bun, but it completely slipped my mind until now."

"It's alright. Good night, mom!"

Judy quickly gave Bonnie a peck on the cheek and a hug before leading Nick out of the kitchen, the fox only able to utter a quick good night before disappearing.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Bonnie couldn't help but chuckle as she went back to finishing the last dishes, glancing back at the doorway for a moment.

"They fit so well together." she said to herself before she focused on getting the last dishes done.

* * *

 **Yeah, in case anyone's interested, the burn on Gideon's paw did not come from baking. As for where it came from, I'll leave it up to you guys, because the actual reveal won't be for at least a few more chapters.**


	9. Chapter 9

When Judy led Nick out of the kitchen and into where the rest of the farmhouse was located, Nick was surprised to find that there were actual elevators down the hallway from the living room where they first arrived.

At the moment, there were still a few of the younger kids lagging behind, most of them seemingly fascinated by Nick's presence judging by the stares he was being given.

Thankfully, outside of a few instances where Nick ended up having to do something with a few of the kids to get them to leave him alone, they largely let him be, but that was mostly because Judy was trying her best to shoo him through the group and into an elevator.

"Really? Did you guys really have to put elevator music into these things?" asked Nick once the elevator started moving, having quickly heard the music coming through the speakers.

"What's wrong with that?" asked Judy, puzzled. "These can go pretty deep, and they need something to keep themselves entertained until then."

"How deep are we talking?"

"I dunno. Ten…maybe fifteen floors? I don't exactly remember. It's been a while."

"Wow. And where's this guest room you guys were speaking of?"

"Well…there's more than one. We're going to the highest one on Floor 5, but there's also one on 6 and 7 as well."

"You get a lot of visitors staying over?"

"Sometimes."

Nick and Judy somehow managed to get one of the elevators to themselves, so after a few seconds of silence, where all they could hear was the cheap music and hum of the elevator, Nick let out a low whistle as he watched the floor numbers change slower than he usually has seen them change.

"When she said downstairs, she really meant it."

"When you've got as many kids as Mom and Dad have, you need the space sometimes. Besides, it's not like we're sharing space with other families."

"Can't argue with that."

Nick didn't get to say much more, as by the time he had spoken, they had reached the fifth floor.

As he followed Judy, he took a chance to look around the surprisingly spacious floor, which felt more like a hotel floor more than anything judging from the décor, which frankly looked like one of those hotel chains that he spent some time in way back when.

Surprisingly, he got so into studying everything around him that Judy was forced to drag him off so that they could get to bed at a reasonable time.

Unfortunately, since Nick had seen fit to not wear his tie for once in his life, her usual choice of grabbing material wasn't available. Luckily, she did have something else to use, but this was the more…shall we say…uncomfortable option. Still, she didn't really have much of a choice.

Reaching down, Judy managed to snatch Nick's wagging tail out of the air with her paw and lightly pulled, hoping that it wouldn't cause any lasting issues.

Thankfully, while she did hear an audible yip coming from the fox in front of him, the only other thing that came from his maw was some minor protesting, which she did her best to ignore.

"Ow, Carrots! Let go of my tail!"

Nick was desperately trying to stay on his feet, which was honestly pretty difficult to do considering he was essentially being pulled backwards.

Eventually, even the normally surefooted fox ended up tripping over himself, nearly falling flat on his muzzle as he crashed on to the floor.

By the time this happened, though, they had just reached the guest bedroom they were supposed to be staying in. This gave Judy an opportunity to fully focus on making sure he was okay after the frankly reckless decision she made.

"Oh god Nick, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good." grunted Nick as he picked himself up off of the floor, checking his snout to make sure nothing was broken. "Did you really have to drag me here by the tail, though? You know how I hate it when people grab it."

Nick instinctively grabbed his tail once the check-up on his snout was done, wrapping it around his body so he could check it as well.

"Sorry Nick. It was the only way to pull you away from your ogling the décor out in the hallway."

Nick was about to bring up how many times she'd dragged him away from things by his tie, but he quickly managed to hold his tongue, having nearly forgotten about the fact that he didn't even bring any ties along with him. Frankly it felt a little weird to not have something that he was so used to wearing with him, but he made his own decision, so he was going to have to live with it up until they got back to Zootopia.

Sighing, Nick stood up, brushing himself off as he turned to face Judy.

"I'll have you know that I liked the way your parents decorated the place." he said, his tone haughty as he adopted an air of importance around him.

"Well, when you've got it, flaunt it, I say."

"And by 'it', I'm assuming you mean a love for chain hotels?"

Judy could barely hold herself together after that joke, somehow managing to suppress an unladylike snort before bursting out into a fit of giggles.

"No, the only time they've ever been to a chain hotel was when they came to visit a couple of months ago." she said through her gasping for air. "I doubt you can really develop a love for those kinds of things after one trip."

"Well, there is always love at first sight, Carrots."

Nick quickly waggled his eyebrows at Judy, but the rabbit gave the fox an unimpressed look, having successfully managed to calm down not long before Nick last spoke.

Even though Nick tried his best to get her laughing once more, Judy managed to hold herself together long enough for the former confox to drop the subject, awkwardly clearing his throat before speaking up.

"Yeah, just…next time try your best to do something other than grab my tail, alright?"

Nick's expression had this hard edge to it that showed that he really meant what he was asking. However, Judy could see a hint of his normal carefree attitude in it as well, so her worries that she'd managed to anger him were abated, at least mostly.

"I promise. If I need to while we're out here, I'll just grab your shirt. So watch out for that, alright?"

Judy smiled sweetly after that, which unnerved Nick a bit considering he'd had more than enough experience with that expression to know that it leads to more pain (for him or others).

He kept his muzzle shut, though, and after nodding to show that he'd understood, he walked over to where his suitcase was, laid out just as Gina mentioned during the truck ride from the train station.

Picking out his sleepwear for the night, Nick walked over to the adjoining bathroom, pausing for a few seconds in front of the door as the fact registered in his mind, before finally heading inside as he prepared himself for bed.

As for Judy, she was way too tired from the long day to worry about getting her turn in the bathroom, so after slipping on one of the nightshirts she had in her own suitcase (a purple shirt with a cartoonish depiction of a rabbit on the front), she unrolled her sleeping bag and slipped in, somehow managing to fall asleep despite the light still being on in the room.

* * *

The next morning came along mostly as a haze, at least in Nick's case. Being on vacation, Nick wanted nothing more than to be able to sleep in to a time where most normal mammals would sleep to, especially considering that even after six months on the force, he still wasn't quite used to getting up at ungodly hours in the morning.

Unfortunately, life had other ideas, as Stu needed help lugging all of the carrots from yesterday's crop out to the stand for selling, and they usually opened it relatively early in the morning to get the best crowds, so he had to pull out some extra paws for help.

Sighing heavily, Nick tried his best to freshen himself up for the day ahead, nearly tripping over the still asleep Judy underneath him a couple of times thanks to him being barely focused as is.

As Stu led Nick up to the top floor and out into the yard where there were other Hopps siblings that looked almost as tired as he was, Nick quickly regretted making the decision to still help out, knowing how difficult it was going to be to juggle this and assisting with the robbery cases all in the span of one week.

Still, he got himself into this mess, and he liked to think he was one who would always find a way to get out of them, either through an escape route or simply going through with it, so after slapping himself on both sides of his snout to wake himself up a little more, he followed along as Stu and the other siblings went out to the shed, ready for what was ahead.

* * *

A few hours passed before Judy finally woke up, feeling surprisingly well rested despite having spent the night inside a sleeping bag, which she hasn't used in years. As she pulled herself out of the bag, too, she realized that she was not only a few feet away from where she originally went to sleep last night, the bag was also tangled up like crazy, so how she managed to get herself out was a mystery even to her.

Still, she couldn't complain, so after getting herself ready for the day ahead (which involved getting a shower, getting dressed and brushing her teeth, stuff she hadn't done last night), she made her way up to the top floor only to find a completely wiped out Nick Wilde in the living room, slumped down so far into one of the chairs that she only noticed him there thanks to one of his paws sticking out from behind the chair's back.

"You alright there, Nick?" she asked as she rounded the chair, revealing matted fur, wet spots on his shirt, and other things that showed just how much he had went through over the past few hours.

"Fine…I'm fine." he said through gasps for air. "Your dad…really likes to push us."

"Well, we do have to get stuff done sometimes."

It was then that Judy hopped up on to the chair next to Nick, briefly considering what she was going to say next before finally going through with it.

"So, how about we go head out to the precinct? I've been kind of itching to get started on this robbery case, and we do need to start there if we're even going to get anywhere."

Judy sounded incredibly eager to get started, but before she could get anymore riled up, Nick barely managed to lift one of his paws off of the arm rest, holding up his index finger towards Judy.

"Hold your horses there, cowpoke." he said, having thankfully managed to catch his breath by this point. "I only just got back, and I want nothing more than to enjoy this wonderful air conditioning as much as I possibly can before I go running back out into the heat. You can go down if you want, but I'm staying here until I'm good and ready."

Judy was admittedly briefly surprised by the tone that Nick had when he was talking. However, after a few seconds of thought where she considered taking him up on the offer and heading down herself, she decided that the visit could wait.

"That's alright. I'm sure they can wait a bit."

This did end up catching Nick off guard a bit, and despite his lethargy, he managed to pull himself up to stare at Judy, a hint of surprise on his muzzle.

"Wow, look at you. Miss Supercop actually isn't rushing into things with a full head of steam."

"Oh, shut up." said Judy, too lazy to come up with anything more substantial as a rebuttal.

Shrugging, Nick buried himself back into the chair, and the two of them took to talking as time passed.

* * *

Once Nick felt energetic enough to finally pull himself out of the chair, the two of them quickly made their way out of the house and back into town just like they did yesterday.

Unfortunately, Nick was being a little difficult, so they weren't actually able to get out until about an hour before lunchtime, so with the walk being as lengthy as it was, they didn't have a whole lot of time to screw around.

After making their way into the precinct, which ever since it was folded into the network of ZPD offices looked like if Precinct One was built in the 1980s, the two of them showed their badges to the officer running the front desk, an elderly goat who Judy was frankly surprised still moved at a decent pace.

The goat did end up having to check Nick's badge, but as for Judy, she really didn't even need to in the first place, as the goat quickly recognized her.

"Ah, Miss Hopps! Glad to see you've decided to stop by again." he said. "I haven't seen you around here since you were just a kid."

"Well, I have been busy actually trying to become a cop, Mr. Goatson. Being at the academy doesn't lend itself a whole lot of time to come visit here. I am sorry about that, though."

"Oh, it's quite alright. I've been a cop long enough to know just how much this job eats up your free time. Anyway, what can I help you two with?"

"Well, we've heard word that there were a string of robberies that have gone down over the past couple of days, and we were looking to give you guys a paw since you were apparently overwhelmed with this."

"And where did you find out about all this?"

"You remember Travis, the one who used to hang out with Gideon Grey? He told us everything last night. He witnessed the last suspect escaping the general store."

It was then that Mr. Goatson's eyes widened.

"He was a witness? Oh my word, I shouldn't have turned him away!"

"No, it's alright, Mr. Goatson. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Besides, I interviewed him when he met us, and I've got my notes with me."

Judy quickly pulled out her notebook, which she thankfully remembered to bring with her, and handed it over to Mr. Goatson, who gladly took it before heading to the back of the station.

After a few minutes passed, an elderly-looking buck in full-on sheriff's gear walked up with him, flipping through the pages as he came up.

"Sheriff Edward Cotton. I believe we've spoken before, if I remember correctly." said the newcomer, shaking paws with Judy.

"Actually, I think I do remember. It was during the Carrot Days Festival a couple of years back, right?"

"Yep. Anyway, Officer Goatson tells me that you two want to help us out with the robberies, am I correct?"

"Yes, that's right." said Judy as she watched Sheriff Cotton shake paws with Nick.

"Now, I know you two are more than capable officers judging by what Chief Bogo's told me during the last meeting we had, but technically you two are considered as civilians, and we don't normally accept outside help unless it involves witnesses or anything else like that."

Judy looked visibly disappointed at Cotton's words, while Nick was trying his best to remain impassive, knowing how he originally felt about doing this. The buck wasn't quite done speaking, though.

"However, these are definitely more than extenuating circumstances. Frankly, we could use all of the help we can get, and there's really not enough time to wait for officers from other precincts to get here, so you're pretty much all I've got."

"Thank you so much for letting us help, Sheriff." said Judy, looking much happier now that Cotton was willing to go along with their assistance.

As for Nick, while he did look a little disappointed after nearly escaping the massive undertaking he's gotten himself into, he remained silent as the two of them were led into the back of the station, both of them eager to get started as they try to figure out just who these brazen bandits were.


	10. Chapter 10

Apologies for the long wait, you guys. Persona 5 happened, and I've been incredibly engrossed in that game since it first came out. It's a very good game, by the way. It's worth checking out if you have a PS4 or PS3.

Anyway, here we go.

* * *

The journey into the back end of the police station was done mostly in silence. Sheriff Cotton was too busy trying to weave his way through the mass of desks and filing cabinets to really be able to think of something to say.

Judy and Nick, meanwhile, were focused on following the sheriff to where he wanted them to go. With this being one of the smaller stations within the Tri-Burrows it usually tended to get pretty hectic, especially when there are a lot of cases being taken care of at once.

So, with the robbery ring filling that void, Judy and Nick had to also spend their time dodging other officers as they tried to avoid losing Sheriff Cotton in the crowd.

Thankfully, it wasn't much longer before the sheriff ducked into what appeared to be his office. This became a little clearer when Judy came up and noticed that a sign on the open door pretty much showed her that this was the case.

"Close the door behind you, would ya? It gets kind of loud in here sometimes." said Cotton as he took a seat behind his desk.

Nick was slightly behind Judy when the two of them came through the doorway, so he ended up being the one who took care of that task, shutting the door behind him.

"Have a seat, you two."

Cotton gestured towards a pair of seats, which were thankfully sized more appropriately for the two of them. Even Judy was somewhat happy at being able to actually rest her arms on both armrests, considering both of them were way too used to sitting in that oversized chair when inside Chief Bogo's office.

"Now then, I hear that you two managed to interview a witness to the General Store robbery. Would you mind sharing to me what you two have managed to learn?"

"Wait, didn't you read my notes? I thought I was pretty clear." asked Judy, confused.

"I did. I'm just more of a listener than a reader, to be honest. Helps me process the information a little better."

Judy couldn't help but be a little puzzled, even sharing a look with Nick. However, she did as she was asked and recounted everything she could remember from her conversation with Travis, Nick jumping in when needed to fill in some of the blanks.

Once she'd finally finished, Cotton tucked his arms behind his head, leaning back against his chair for a few moments as he seemingly mulled over what she'd just said.

Surprisingly, though, this actually ended up taking a bit longer than either of the younger cops thought.

"Is there something wrong?" asked Nick, looking concerned.

"Oh, it's nothing all that bad." said Cotton, sitting up once more and lifting a paw in a placating gesture. "There's just something a little strange with how the witness described what he saw."

"How so?" asked Judy.

"It's…nothing really major, at least as far as I can think of." said Cotton. "I've just read through the case files for at least a majority of the other robberies that have been connected to this one. The other ones I've noticed tended to follow the same MO. This one was different, though."

Neither Judy nor Nick could see how different the one they were aware of was any different from the others, but then again they haven't actually seen any firm details about any of the other robberies, so they really didn't have much of a leg to stand on, so they remained silent, allowing Cotton to explain what exactly he meant.

"Basically what I'm trying to say is that the robbery that you guys have gotten was the only one that actually involved the culprit carrying a loaded firearm."

Both Nick and Judy were surprised at this new turn of events, especially after the amount of time they've spent dealing with guns since she first joined the force.

"Whoa, hold on a second there, buddy." said Nick, holding his paws out in a stopping gesture. "So, are you trying to tell us that none of the other robberies tied to this ring had any real weaponry involved?"

"Well, we were mostly going by eyewitness accounts and security camera footage from stores who actually had them, but judging from all of the information we've uncovered, there was no mention of any firearms."

"That's odd." said Judy, pondering this new revelation. "Why would these criminals suddenly start using weapons after going unarmed for so long worked so well?"

"That's what we're trying to find out." said Cotton. "Whatever chance I've gotten, I've had officers interviewing the owners to see if they knew anything."

"I'm guessing no luck, then?"

Cotton shook his head.

"They couldn't even get anything out of them. Almost every time, the only real answers I get from the other officers is that they were either too shaken up, or they simply refused to speak."

"Do you think there might be some form of intimidation going on?" asked Judy.

"Possibly. Frankly, I'm leaving all of my options open, especially since we're not getting anywhere on our own."

The room fell silent once Cotton finished speaking, as the three of them tried to figure out what exactly to do next. Thankfully, it didn't take long before someone spoke up, and surprisingly it came from an unexpected source.

"Well, I suppose we should probably go interview the victims ourselves." said Nick.

"I don't know how much you're going to get out of them, but if you want to try, be my guest." said Cotton, acquiescing to their decision.

"Can you give us a list of the affected stores, Sheriff?" asked Judy.

Cotton nodded, getting up out of his seat before heading over to a nearby filing cabinet.

After a few seconds of silence, where all Nick and Judy could hear (outside of the muffled chatter outside) was the sound of Cotton leafing through all of the files, the sheriff sat back down, lightly tossing a manila envelope over to the other side.

"Here you go. Thankfully, we'd already put together that list as part of the investigation. I'm sure you guys wouldn't be too thrilled to have to wait for me to put one together."

"Oh no, we wouldn't have minded." said Judy. "Thanks for this, though."

Judy quickly reached over and grabbed the envelope, shaking it around a bit in her paw as she spoke before she hopped off of the chair.

As the two of them headed for the door, though, they were quickly stopped when Nick heard the creak of Cotton's chair as the sheriff hopped out of it once more.

"Oh, before you go, there's one thing I want to tell you guys."

"What's that?" asked Judy, her paw on the doorknob.

Cotton paused, thinking about how to phrase what he wanted to say for a moment before finally going through with it.

"Now, I know you guys are technically considered civilians right now, but I feel like I need to remind you both to report everything that you've learned to myself or anyone of the other officers who can in turn transfer the information to me."

Both Nick and Judy paused, a little puzzled by what the motivation was behind what Cotton was asking about.

"Without Chief Bogo's express permission for you guys to assist, we're treading on very thin ice. Any screw-ups have a good chance of ending up on his desk, and if he finds out, not only will you two be in trouble, but I'll be as well!"

"Well, why don't we just contact the chief right now…save us the time?" asked Nick, sticking his paws in his pockets as he turned back to face Cotton.

"We can't. I've known Chief Bogo way longer than you guys have, and as far as I'm aware of, he's never agreed to allow officers on vacation to assist on cases, especially ones as dangerous as the one we're getting into."

"Guess that means that we're going to have to be careful. Right, Slick?" asked Judy, giving Nick a smile as she spoke.

"You know it. Come on, let's get started."

The two of them quickly saluted, surprisingly still showing proper etiquette despite not officially working as police officers, before they quickly went through the door. This left Cotton to sigh heavily as he flopped down into his seat once more, sliding a paw down his face as he mulled over what he'd learned.

"What did I just get myself into?"

* * *

Once Nick and Judy managed to shuffle their way back out of the police station and into town, Judy immediately went to work.

Flipping the manila envelope over, Judy unwove the string holding it closed before opening it, pulling out two sheets of paper as she placed them against the envelope to help keep them straight.

"Anything good?" asked Nick, curious as he watched Judy scan through the list of stores affected.

"Nothing yet. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised that they got so many."

"Well, they must be good if those guys in there are scrambling to get anywhere." said Nick, pointing towards the station with an outstretched thumb.

"True…"

Judy quickly fell silent after that, Nick's ears perking up once he heard her voice trail off.

"Something up?" he asked.

Instead of answering immediately, Judy quickly walked over to where he was standing, showing the list to him as she pointed to one specific spot.

"Take a look at this." she said, a hint of bewilderment in her tone.

Nick was more than willing to go along with what Judy was asking for him to do. However, with the sun shining not too far behind him, this made actually seeing the paper a little difficult considering it was shining right on it.

Thankfully, he was able to quickly find a way around it, as he held his paw up above said paper in a position to where there would be enough shade for him to be able to see it.

Once he got a good look at what Judy was pointing at, though, his eyes widened in surprise as he realized just what she was implying.

"Gideon Grey's Good…wait, Gideon was one of the victims?"

"Apparently, yes. Honestly, I'm just as surprised as you are."

"Why didn't he tell us when we were over there last night? You'd figure with Travis freaking out, he'd feel fit to mention something about his own store getting robbed."

Judy didn't really say anything, showing Nick that she didn't have any idea as to why Gideon would stay silent like he did either.

"God, I don't like this, Carrots." he said, slapping a paw to his forehead as he continued to look at the spot on the paper where Gideon's store was listed.

"I don't either, but all we can really do is just do our best, right?"

Nick still didn't look very convinced that they would be able to do much better than the police, but after seeing the continued look of optimism of Judy's face, he couldn't help but smile knowing just how determined she was to see this case through.

"I suppose so. Anyway, where do you want to go first?"

Judy paused for a moment, mulling over her options as she decided on where she wanted to go.

"Actually, why don't we go see the general store first? They're a more recent case, so they might have a better idea of what they saw."

"You sure? There's a good chance that they might just be another case of being too frightened to say anything, especially considering it only just happened."

"Well, we can't really just ignore them, Nick. Even if we don't get anything, we do need to cover all of our bases."

"Hey, I'm not trying to convince you not to go for them, Carrots. I'm just warning you not to get your hopes up."

"I know, I'm just…worried. I thought we dealt with the gun issue when we locked up Bellwether."

"I wish we did, but obviously it's way more widespread than we thought."

The two of them paused for a few seconds, unsure about what to say. Eventually, though, Nick decided it was for the best for them to get moving.

"Come on, let's go."

"Yeah, we should probably get at least a few of these stores out before nighttime."

As the two of them finally began walking through town, Nick couldn't help but comment on a thought he had after the last thing Judy said.

"Hey Carrots, what's with the sudden interest in not being out here after dark?"

This caused Judy to turn her head to face Nick, a look of confusion on her face as she registered what Nick had said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with getting an early night. I'm just more used to practically nothing stopping you from getting a case done."

"I promised Mom I'd be home for dinner last night, remember?" she said, still puzzled.

"Yeah, I know. That was one thing. But now I hear you talking about trying to get as much out of the way as possible before night falls. Frankly, that's unlike you. No offense."

"None taken." said Judy, although his words did have a bit of an effect on her.

Still, she didn't really have any way to explain herself, at least at the moment, so the only thing she really could do was to think up a quick excuse to get Nick off of her trail.

"Well, I suppose that at least a few of the stores ought to be open after dark. Maybe if we move quickly we can get some more in before then."

Nick still didn't seem very convinced, but he doubted he would be able to get much out of her, at least at this point, so he shrugged.

"Lead the way." he said, gesturing with his paw towards where he remembered the general store to be.

Judy couldn't help but be a little worried after noticing Nick's less than enthusiastic attitude in his last sentence, but she decided it was probably best to keep her mouth shut, knowing that she had no right to call him on his mood when she was acting roughly the same way.

Sighing heavily, she began walking, Nick following close behind as the two of them made their way down the street, eventually coming up to the still busy-looking general store.

"Wow, looks like the other officers must be still investigating here." Judy commented, earning her a look from Nick.

"Looks like it. I do kind of hope that they'll let us interview the owners."

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing that we brought our badges, right?" asked Judy, digging through her pockets and unearthing her badge, which she thankfully remembered to grab before they left today.

Nick didn't answer, instead focusing on digging through his own pockets as well. Luckily, though, just when it seemed to Judy like he'd forgotten to take it, he found it in his back pocket, showing it to Judy before quickly storing it back in.

Satisfied, Judy nodded, and the two of them went into the store, ready to finally get this case started.

* * *

 **Quick note before I go. I did make an attempt to find out if there was any rule that affected an officer's ability to assist on a case while on vacation. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything concrete, and while I was mostly sure that there was no real rule, I figured that Chief Bogo's personal feelings would be a suitable replacement, so that's what I went with. Just wanted to get that out of the way before the police people commented on that.**


	11. Chapter 11

As Nick entered the Bunnyburrow General Store a few steps behind Judy, he couldn't help but notice just how…country it looked.

Now, to be fair, Nick's only real experience with how the other half lived came partly from Judy, but mostly from the old Wild West movies that he liked to watch as a kid. Sure, the Wild West was a way more lawless place that Bunnyburrow would ever hope to be, but he could see at least some similarities.

Anyway, as much as Nick really wanted to dwell on how much this place reminded him of a homelier convenience store, he had a job to do, so after shaking his head to bring himself back to the present, Nick focused his attention on what was in front of him, only to surprisingly find himself already in front of the counter.

Glancing behind him, Nick was shocked to find that he'd somehow avoided crashing into anything during his journey from the front door to the counter. He'd almost expected to knock at least a few jars over with how much his mind was wandering a few minutes ago, but he decided to take it as is, chalking it up to his natural litheness.

"Can I help you with something?" asked the clerk behind the counter, who happened to be a hare a few inches taller than Judy.

He also had on a red flannel shirt and a pair of overalls, which made him look like a stereotypical country bumpkin, but Nick was considerate enough not to point that out aloud.

Digging into his pocket, Nick pulled out his badge and showed it to the clerk.

"Nick Wilde, ZPD. Are you the owner, by any chance?"

"Harry Fluffer, and no, I'm not. The owners are actually my parents."

"Are they anywhere around? My partner and I would like to ask them some questions about what happened last night."

"Afraid not, Mr. Wilde. They were mighty shaken up after that robbery, so I told them to stay home for the day and I'd handle the shop."

"You get asked to man the place a lot?"

"Sometimes. I've kind of wanted to follow in Judy Hopps's footsteps and move to Zootopia. I'm probably not going to go as far as to get into the ZPD, but still, seeing how someone like her can make a name for herself outside of Bunnyburrow was pretty inspiring, if I do say so myself."

Harry quickly fell silent, glancing off into the store behind Nick for a few moments before returning his focus to Nick as he spoke once more.

"Well, until that happens, if they need me to man the fort here, I'm not going to complain."

"That's a pretty good outlook to have. Are your parents alright with this?"

"Well, they're not thrilled about it, but they did say that they weren't going to stop me if I went through with it."

Nick hummed in admiration as he watched Harry gesticulate as he spoke. While he'd seen way more than enough instances of Judy being recognized thanks to what the two of them did with the Bellwether case (frankly, the amount of times they were stopped was starting to get a little grating, especially considering Nick didn't get nearly the amount of credit), he was admittedly a little surprised that her influence has spread as far as the Tri-Burrows.

Then again, the Hopps family was one of the more well-known families in the area, so he could see just how quickly the news can travel.

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Nick refocused his attention on Harry, only to find that the hare looked a little concerned as he watched the fox in front of him.

"You alright there, officer? I think you kind of zoned out on me for a moment, there."

Nick awkwardly cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed that he let himself get sidetracked so easily.

Unfortunately, before he could actually get moving with the questioning, another pair of long ears went past his line of sight, and after looking to his right, he found Judy standing right next to him, a smile on her face.

"Look who it is! Where've you been, Carrots?"

"Talking to the officers assigned to this store."

"Anything interesting?" asked Nick, his eyebrows rising as his interest was piqued.

"Nope. They just said that the owners were too freaked out to say anything."

"Just like all of the other robberies that Cotton mentioned."

Judy fell silent for a few moments, pondering what exactly she should do next considering their options were limited.

Before she could actually try and figure something out, though, Nick suddenly stepped in, placing his paws on the counter as he addressed the hare.

"Mr. Fluffer, I know that you weren't here when the robbery happened, but is there any chance that you'd be able to answer some questions for us?"

Harry was predictably caught off guard by Nick's question, his eyes widening as he watched Judy and Nick quietly converse before the former handed the latter a pen and notepad.

"Where did you get this? I thought you forgot to bring a pad." he heard Nick whisper.

"The officers had a spare, thankfully."

While Nick was admittedly a little surprised that the officers would be carrying more than one notepad (he couldn't recall ever seeing any of his colleagues carrying extra pads), he decided it was probably best just to take it as a win.

So, after clearing his throat once more, Nick flipped the notepad open to the first page, letting the pen hover over the paper as he spoke up.

"Now, I don't believe that I've got an answer from you yet concerning my last question. Are you going to be alright if we ask you some questions?"

"What? Oh, sure. I don't know how much help I'll be, but I'll give it a shot." said Harry, pulled out of his thoughts after being addressed so suddenly.

"Good." said Judy, stepping in. "Did your parents happen to share anything with you last night or possibly earlier today about what happened with the robbery?"

"Not too much, to be honest. I noticed that something was up with them last night when they came home. I asked them what was going on, and that's when they told me that the store was robbed."

"So, did you call the police?" asked Nick, furiously scribbling notes into his notepad as he spoke.

"Well, I first tried to get them to say if they called the police themselves or not."

"I'm assuming that must have not worked out."

"No, and it's kind of worrying me. It's not like they've completely shut down, but they've been noticeably quieter today."

Judy could hear Nick's scribbling slow down a bit as he glanced up at Harry, giving the hare a sympathetic look.

"I did end up calling the police not too long after, though."

"How'd it go?" asked Judy.

"They said they'd look into it, but they've been so swamped since those robbers came in, they weren't sure how long it was going to take. Thank god they came in this morning. Otherwise, I don't know what I'd do!"

"Calm down, sir. We're doing the best we can to figure out who's been doing all of this." said Judy, her officer's instincts kicking in when she saw just how worked up Mr. Fluffer was getting.

Thankfully, while it did take a few moments to do so, Harry was able to calm himself down after taking a few deep breaths.

"Sorry. I'm just a little freaked out right now. I mean, I've been hearing about this string of robberies going on in this town for a while now, and frankly I didn't think we'd end up being one of the victims."

"We understand completely, Mr. Fluffer. Now, is there anything else you can think of about your parents? Even the smallest detail will help us greatly."

Nick was only really saying that to goad Harry into giving them anything that they could use for the case, considering even he was unsure about whether the kind of details he was talking about would work judging by the type of case they were dealing with.

Surprisingly, though, after a few seconds where Harry seemed lost in thought, his expression brightened as it appeared that he had successfully remembered something.

"Oh wait! I almost forgot!"

Judy's ears quickly perked up after this seemingly unlikely scenario turned out to be fruitful. As she listened intently to what Harry was about to say, she could see that Nick was also prepared, pen to paper as he was ready to jot down this new information.

"While I was trying to get them to tell me what happened, there were these three words that I kept hearing every time I asked something. They'll kill us…they'll kill us…I didn't think it was that important at first, but now that you guys are talking about any kind of detail being helpful, I thought I'd mention it."

"Mr. Fluffer, this is way more important than you think it is. Why didn't you share it with the officers who were in here before us?" asked Judy, her tone becoming much more frantic now that she realized that they've got an important lead.

"I've only just remembered, okay? I've been here since I opened this morning trying to keep my mind off of what's going on with my parents, and now you two and those other officers are just bringing this all back! I thought the police was supposed to keep us calm, not stress us out!"

Harry was clearly starting to become agitated, which forced the two of them to take action before things got worse.

"Mr. Fluffer, please calm down. We're only trying to help." said Nick.

"Yeah? Well it looks like you're accusing me of hiding information." said Harry, fuming.

"Look…" started Judy, sighing heavily before continuing on. "I was out of line with that question, and I'm sorry that it had to go this far."

Judy fell silent, waiting to see if her apology would defuse the situation.

At first, it seemed like Harry wasn't going to fall for it so easily, as his expression only changed minutely. However, after what felt like forever, she could hear the hare letting out air through his nostrils as he closed his eyes for a few moments.

"Alright. I believe you. Thank you for apologizing."

"You're welcome."

"Before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to share with us?" asked Nick, keeping his tone measured so as not to anger the still stressed out hare.

Thankfully, even though Harry didn't answer (instead replying with a simple shake of his head), his expression did not get any more heated, which both Nick and Judy were very glad to see happen.

"Listen, I'm not going to stop you if you want to stay here, but personally I'd suggest closing up the shop for the day and heading home. I'm sure your parents need the company judging by what you were saying they were acting like."

Nick watched Harry ponder his suggestion, unsure as to whether he would actually go through with it.

"I'm good, actually. To be honest, I kind of need the time away. I love them and all, but dealing with what happened has been stressing me out way too much."

"Okay, that's fair." said Nick, shrugging.

After closing the notebook, Nick stuck the pen through the wire binding the paper together, threading the clip on the outside to prevent it from falling out.

"If you have anything else that you happen to remember, please don't hesitate to either come to us or notify the police station, Mr. Fluffer. We'll only be here for the rest of the week, but the other officers will be available anytime."

"You're only here for the rest of the week?" asked Harry. "Why's that?"

"We're, uh…technically supposed to be on vacation from Precinct One." said Nick. "We're just helping with this on an unofficial basis."

"Well, it's good to see officers taking the initiative, I suppose."

The conversation over, Nick quickly reached across the counter with his paw, shaking Harry's paw after the hare realized what he was doing.

"Anyway, we'd like to thank you for taking the time for answering our questions, Mr. Fluffer." said Nick as Harry shook paws with Judy.

"You're welcome Officer Wilde…Officer Hopps."

Nick and Judy quickly began making their way over to the door, ready to get a move on with the rest of the interviews. After one final exchange of goodbyes, they finally exited the general store and headed back into town.

* * *

As they headed down the steps and back on to the dirt roads that lined the main part of Bunnyburrow, Nick looked down to where Judy was and noticed that she looked to be lost in thought.

"Something on your mind, Fluff?"

"Hm?"

Judy looked over in surprise, not expecting to be pulled out of her thoughts so roughly.

"You looked pretty zoned out there."

"Oh, um…I've just been thinking about what Harry said about what his parents were saying."

"You mean 'They'll kill us', right?"

"Yeah! I mean, it's kind of strange, isn't it? We've seen our fair share of robberies in the last six months, and I don't recall ever hearing any of the culprits mention anything like that."

"Well, to be fair, if these guys were brazen enough to knock off fifteen or so stores in the span of weeks, I can imagine that something like that would come up."

"Why would they do that, though? Don't you think just getting the money would be enough?"

"Most likely it's just an intimidation tactic. Travis did say that the perp who knocked off the general store had a gun, right?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't explain why what happened to the owners was happening to the owners of all of the other stores."

Nick opened his muzzle to reply, but it quickly shut when something hit him.

"You're right. That is strange. The sheriff did mention that there were no guns involved in any of the other incidents."

"I think we'd better get to interviewing the rest of the victims. I really want to see if they know anything about what Harry said."

"Agreed. I think we've got something going, Carrots."

Nick gave Judy an eager smile, knowing that they've seemingly broken through on this case.

"Wow, look at you." commented Judy, having noticed the look on Nick's muzzle. "Just yesterday you wanted nothing to do with this, and now you're all in."

Nick was admittedly a little taken aback by her assessment, but he decided that it was best just to take it as a compliment, so after recovering from his stunned state, he adopted his normal half-lidded stare as he shrugged.

"I guess you must be rubbing off on me, Fluff. Don't expect me to start being a goody two-shoes, though. I'd need a lot more coddling for that to happen."

Nick's joke thankfully earned a giggle from his counterpart, and he quickly acknowledged the reaction with a playful bow.

"Thank you, I'll be here all week."

With the mood now noticeably brighter, Nick and Judy began making their way over to the first store on the list that Sheriff Cotton gave them, ready to get started on their next round of interviews.


	12. Chapter 12

Nick and Judy spent the next few hours working their way down the list, interviewing as many of the affected businesses as they could manage with their limited time frame. Unfortunately, though, they weren't as lucky with everyone else as they were with the owners of the general store.

Even though the two of them used practically every method of coaxing answers out of victims that they were taught at the academy, a majority of them still refused to speak about the incidents, explaining in one form or another that they just wanted to forget that the robbery ever happened and move on.

Surprisingly, though, not every store was a bust. The town florist mentioned that the suspect who robbed her was in fact armed.

Both Nick and Judy traded looks, thinking that this might be something that Sheriff Cotton missed during his first round of questioning (considering he mentioned the lack of firearms), but after another round of coaxing, they were slightly disappointed when it turned out to only be a small pocket knife.

Still, this was something that they were going to have to bring up when they brought the sheriff up to speed, so after making a note of it in Nick's notebook, the two of them moved on.

Another unexpected hit turned out to be one of the diners that were scattered in a few spots around town. This new bit of information turned out to not be as groundbreaking as what the florist had shared, but the fact that the culprit had knocked him out and stolen some of the family heirlooms that they had brought in to decorate the place was something that they couldn't just ignore.

Unfortunately, even with those two new tidbits, most of their time proved to be a waste, as they didn't learn anything really new whether the victims chose to share anything or not.

So, as the sun went down on another day, Nick and Judy were spending some time sitting on a bench, partly to get off of their aching feet, but mostly to bounce ideas between each other before heading back to the Hopps house for dinner.

"Well, that was pointless." said Nick, aimlessly flipping through the written on pages in his notebook.

"We did get some interesting stuff. I mean, a couple of the store owners did mention that the culprit threatened to kill them if they shared any details, just like Harry."

"Yeah, that's true. I guess this means we can assume that the ones who didn't talk also received that threat, right?"

"Most likely. It's been way too long for trauma to be a legitimate excuse, at least for a majority of them."

"And what about the rest of them?"

"I'm just being realistic, Nick. Please don't try to delve any further than that, because I really don't know."

"Fair enough. I was just curious."

The two of them fell silent, staring at the setting sun for a few minutes before Nick suddenly decided to speak up.

"Hey, what time is it?"

Judy quickly pulled out her phone and switched the screen on, reading the time displayed on it before returning her attention to Nick.

"It's 5:30. Why?"

"What's say we go see Gideon before we head back? I'm a little curious to see what he has to say considering he failed to mention being one of the victims."

Nick couldn't help but notice how wary Judy looked as she considered whether to go along with his plan. However, before he could really ask about why she was acting that way, Judy suddenly hopped off of the bench, turning back towards her partner.

"Let's go see him. I'm betting he'll have something interesting to say."

"Whoa, hold on a second, Fluff. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"What do you mean?"

Nick didn't answer immediately, instead watching as Judy adopted an innocent look on her face in the hopes of him dropping the subject. Unfortunately for her, he was too experienced in reading expressions, so he was able to see right through her.

"Come on, I know you're hiding something. Seriously, what's got you so wound up about going to see Gideon?"

"It's nothing, really! I just…"

Judy quickly tried to think up an excuse so that Nick didn't get even more suspicious after she clearly trailed off, but as much as she tried, she couldn't really think of anything that wasn't incredibly weak.

"Alright, alright…I'm just not sure I want to know why Gideon hid the fact that he was robbed from us."

"Okay, I think you've successfully confused me for once in your life, Carrots. Why don't you want to know what he's been up to?" asked Nick, a puzzled look on his features.

"Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting valuable info for helping us crack this case and all, but I've known Gideon since I was seven. Sure, most of it had to deal with him being your basic bully, but with how he's been acting since last year, I don't want to find out that he's been involved with something shady again."

Her explanation finished, Judy looked up to see what Nick thought about it, and while he did look like he was lost in thought, his nonplussed expression made her worry a little bit that she didn't fully get her point across.

"So…I understand what you're saying. Really, I do. Don't you think it might be best just to get it over with and find out? I mean, even if he was doing what you think he's doing, it doesn't mean that you have to hate him. Besides, he has a right to explain himself."

Judy attempted to think of a way to argue against Nick's point, but in reality, Nick couldn't have worded it any better than he could, so after sighing heavily, she turned back around to face the road ahead of her.

"Come on, let's get over there before it gets dark."

Despite her saying that in her normal tone, Nick couldn't help but be a little concerned, wondering just what exactly she was currently going through. As much as he wanted to ask about it, though, he felt like he'd already delved a little too far into the subject, and he really wanted to avoid having her shut him off.

So, the only thing he could do was remain silent, as the two of them made their way over to Gideon's bakery, the sun slowly setting as they ambled their way along the pathways winding through town.

* * *

Thankfully, it didn't take too long for them to get to the shop in question. They quickly stepped through the doorway, and it wasn't long before the tingling of the bell above the doorway caught the attention of the proprietor in question.

"What can I do…oh hey! It's you two! How's the investigation going?"

"It's going good so far, Gid." said Nick, taking the lead with the conversation considering he could see Judy feverishly trying to come up with a way to bring up what they were actually here for without sounding accusatory.

"Good to hear. So, what can I do for you today?"

Neither of them really answered at first, which did leave Gideon a little puzzled. Even Nick was starting to get a little nervous, thinking that he was going to have to bring the subject up himself.

Thankfully, though, before it got to the point where he would actually have to do it, Judy stepped in to make the save.

"So…Gideon…would you mind sharing with us why you didn't tell us you that you were robbed recently?"

Judy began silently hoping that the portly fox wouldn't take her method of opening the conversation the wrong way. While the good news on that front was that it seemed like he was alright, the bad news was that he had on an expression of confusion.

"Excuse me?"

Whether it was a genuine expression of confusion, or if Gideon was hiding something, Judy couldn't really tell. In reality, though, she didn't want to find out.

So, after doing her best to resist looking over at Nick (whose own expression pretty much answered her question), she quickly pulled the folder out from under her arm, brandishing it in front of the fox without actually opening it.

"This is a list of stores around town that were recently hit by a robbery ring, and it turns out that this store in fact was one of the ones on the list."

Falling silent, Judy quickly realized that her tone was getting a little too authoritative for her liking, so before she spoke again, she let out a breath in an attempt to calm herself down.

"Listen Gideon, we're not mad at you or anything. We just want to know why you didn't mention anything about you being robbed when we were here last night."

Both Nick and Judy could tell that Gideon wanted to be anywhere other than where he was at the moment, but after a few seconds of silence, a sigh came from the larger fox as he finally explained himself.

"Look, I swear I wasn't doing nothing nefarious when I didn't tell you guys about me being robbed. Honest."

"We believe you, Gideon." said Judy, chancing a glance towards Nick to see what he thought.

Thankfully, Nick caught the glance, and he gave a short nod before pulling out his notebook and flipping to an empty page.

As for Gid, some of the tense feeling in his gut evaporated knowing that they both still trusted him despite what he put Judy through, and Nick to a way lesser extent.

With the portly fox noticeably less nervous, he finally started explaining himself.

"The only reason I didn't tell you guys that I was one of the stores robbed…the only reason was that I was worried about what you guys would think of me."

Judy quickly opened her mouth to tell Gideon about how ridiculous that sounded, but before she could, he spoke up once more in an attempt to elaborate.

"Now, hold on a second! Let me explain."

Gideon then paused for a moment, letting out a breath before speaking.

"Remember how you guys were talking to Travis about what he saw with the general store and everything?"

"Yeah." said Judy slowly, unsure about where he was going.

"Well, when I was listening to you two interviewing him, I couldn't help but be reminded of when that happened to me. I didn't want to look like a jerk by 'stealing' Travis's thunder, so to speak, so I kept my mouth shut. Honestly, I wish I didn't, now that I think about it."

"Can you tell us what happened?" asked Nick, subtly lifting his notebook up in front of him.

"Honestly, there's not much to it. The guy walked in, I asked if he needed any help finding a pastry he wanted, and he went ahead and pulled a gun on me!"

Judy's ears immediately whipped up to their full height after hearing this new revelation from Gideon.

"Wait, he pulled a gun on you?"

"Yeah, he did!" said Gideon indignantly.

Judy quickly whipped her head around to face Nick, intending to discuss this new information with him. However, her excitement dissipated a bit when she noticed that Nick didn't seem as surprised as she was.

In fact, his attention seemed to be less on Gideon himself and more on Gideon's right paw.

"Something happen to your paw, Gideon?" he asked, curious.

Judy could tell that Gideon was nervous after hearing Nick's question. His expression as he lifted his paw to reveal a still-healing burn on his pad.

"Oh, this?" he said, trying desperately to hide how much of a bundle of nerves he currently was. "I burned myself handling a pie yesterday morning."

Both Nick and Judy could tell how weak of an excuse that was, especially since Judy knows that he was too good to commit a simple mistake like that.

Unfortunately for Gideon, though, his problems were compounded, as the act of lifting his paw into the air led to his sleeve slipping up towards his shoulder enough to reveal something that the fox hoped no one would see.

"Wait, is that a bandage, Gid? What happened to you?"

Gideon briefly considered just making another excuse to explain the bandage away, but considering how feeble the first excuse was, he figured that it probably wasn't the best idea, especially when it came to doing so in front of two experienced cops.

After pausing for a few more moments, Gideon licked his lips out of habit (mostly due to the state he was in), before finally confessing.

"I tried to disarm the guy who robbed me."

Predictably, Nick and Judy's reactions were one of shock, but unfortunately Gideon wasn't able to fully process what those meant considering his eyes were closed out of shame.

"Gideon, what were you thinking?" asked Judy. "You know how dangerous it is to grab a gun that's pointed at you! I mean, we were taught about it in middle school!"

"I know, Judy, and I've been kicking myself about it every day since that happened. But seriously, who would be able to think straight when they've got a gun pointed in their face?" said Gideon, his eyes now open as he regarded the two officers in front of him.

"Please continue." said Nick, stepping in in a bid to move the conversation along.

"I tried to push the gun away from him, so even if he did manage to get a shot off, it wouldn't hit me." said Gideon as he pulled up his sleeve. "As you can tell from this, though, I wasn't fast enough."

Judy's eyes widened when she took in the sight of Gideon's arm, a decent amount of dried blood staining the white fabric on the side she could see.

"Jesus, Gideon, I hope you went to the doctor. That does not look very good." commented Nick.

"Of course I did. I'm not dumb enough to ignore when I'm bleeding to death. Thankfully, I was only grazed, though. Still hurt like you know what."

"So, now we know about where that came from." said Judy. "What about the burn?"

"It turns out gun barrels can get really hot when they've just been fired."

"Ah, I see. Did the doctor take care of that, too?" she asked, wincing a bit.

"Yeah, he did. The topical cream helps, but it still stings quite a lot."

"Well, at least you're still doing alright."

"Frankly, I'm surprised you're still working, especially when you're still using your paw as much as you are." said Nick. "You'd think someone would want to take a few days off to let it heal."

"I'd love to, you guys, but I'm swamped with orders, and not just in town, either. I've got at least a couple of them coming from way out in the city. Can you imagine how difficult that is?"

"Well, maybe we can help!" said Judy.

Gideon's expression noticeably brightened after hearing the offer, but before Judy could even elaborate, Nick quickly pulled her aside, his paws on her shoulders as his own expression screamed desperation.

"Carrots, listen. I know you're all about this 'making the world a better place' thing, but there's also this thing called putting too much on your plate at once. We're already knee deep in this case. We really don't have the time to be shuttling pies two hundred miles away. For the love of…whatever, please reconsider what you're saying!"

"Alright, Nick, I understand. I just figured I'd offer."

"And there's a time and a place for that. Just not right now." said Nick, smiling now that he knows that he got through to her.

Turning back towards Gideon, Judy gave him the most sympathetic look she could muster.

"I'm really sorry, Gideon. I know I just said I'd like to help, but-"

"I know, Jude. I appreciate the offer, but I know that you two are busy trying to nab those folks that are taking advantage of us."

"If you do get a chance, though, I'm sure Sheriff Cotton down at the station would greatly appreciate anything you could say about what happened." said Nick.

"I'll think about it." said Gideon, his tone subdued thanks to knowing that he was still flying solo.

Thankfully, though, after watching Nick and Judy exit the store, with the tingling bell the only other real sound inside the building, Gideon resolved to do his best to finally hire someone who could relieve some of the stress of his job.

As for Nick and Judy, neither of them really spoke to each other as they headed back to the Hopps household, the two of them silently agreeing to wait on discussing the case until they could brief the sheriff.

Their plans set in stone, they soon made their way out of town as the street lamps started to turn on, and the sun finally set for the day.


	13. Chapter 13

As Nick and Judy continued making their way back to the Hopps farm, they still remained completely silent, the two of them still honoring their agreement not to discuss the case considering what they've just been through today.

Still, even though they did agree to keep quiet for now, the air between them was tense, as neither of them knew what to do now knowing what they knew.

Judy's mind was screaming at her to head over to the police station and debrief Sheriff Cotton on what they'd learned today, consequences be damned. Over the months since she'd moved to Zootopia, she'd learned that it was always best to share information with her superiors (like Chief Bogo) as soon as possible, while the memory was still fresh in her mind.

However, even though she'd done the best she could to prove to Nick that she was willing to skirt the boundaries of the rules to move forwards with her career, she'd already came close to getting in trouble with her parents for staying out past curfew once.

To be fair, she was relatively sure that they would understand what was going on once she'd explained the job that the two of them were doing, but there was also the part of her mind that was playing Devil's Advocate. With the way her parents acted sometimes when it came to what being a cop entailed, she frankly wouldn't have been too surprised to see them fret even more considering how close she was to them in terms of distance.

With an audible sigh, she resigned to herself that their best course of action would be to wait until tomorrow to share their findings. They'd also had Nick's notes as well, so it wasn't a complete lost cause.

Still, she'd had enough experience dealing with his sloppy report writing to know better, so after making a mental note to take a look at their notes sometime tonight, she returned her focus to the path in front of her just as the farm popped up in the dim moonlight.

Unfortunately, she didn't get much more of a chance to think about where they were with everything, as Nick's ear had flicked towards her, having clearly heard the sigh not too long ago.

"Something on your mind, Carrots?" he asked, his tone measured.

"Oh, it's nothing, really. I'm just…really tired right now." she said, which was more of a partial truth than anything.

She already knew that mentioning her worries about getting in trouble with her parents would only lead to another stern talking-to from Nick, considering they'd only just done so this afternoon. As for the Cotton part of her thoughts, it was already too late to even think about doing that kind of thing, so she felt that it wasn't worth mentioning.

"You can say that again." said Nick, an audible yawn escaping his maw, the rows of sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight. "I know that we've got all of this important info, but I'll be glad not to have one of these kinds of days for a while. I am worn out, mentally and physically."

Judy honestly couldn't blame him. With the threatening messages and Gideon's injuries weighing on her mind, she was frankly surprised that her eyes haven't gotten wider from the amount of times she was shocked today.

"I am too. Come on, let's get going. My mom and dad are probably waiting for us."

Judy gestured towards the house with an outstretched paw as she spoke. Nick, having clearly seen said paw thanks to his night vision, took the lead as they made their way over to the house and through the door, ready to call it another night.

* * *

Thankfully, compared to the previous night, this night was much calmer than normal.

While they were once again greeted by someone when they went inside the house (this time it was Bonnie sitting in the chair instead of Stu), once they explained what was going on, the air became a little less tense.

"Oh, so that's what you two were doing today." commented Bonnie after hearing what Judy had to say.

"Yeah, I'm sorry for not mentioning that to you, Mom. I guess it kind of slipped my mind considering everything that happened yesterday."

"Well, at least you two are home safe. In the future, though, please let me or your father know where you guys are going. In fact, Stu was looking for you guys."

"Really? What did he want?" asked Judy, her expression a mix of curiosity and guilt.

"It's nothing important, really. Just some errands he was too busy to do himself. He did get Jackson and Greg to do it, so it wasn't all bad."

"That's good."

The tension in Judy's body language dissipated a little bit knowing that her and Nick being in town didn't cause any problems. Still, with the patriarch not in the room with them, she had no real idea as to how he felt about not knowing where they were, so she really felt the need to apologize to him before her conscience started to eat at her.

"Say Mom, where's Dad at? I wanted to talk to him about something."

"He's helping some of the kids into bed. Speaking of, I should go help him."

Bonnie quickly pulled herself out of the chair, turning to make her way towards the hallway that Nick remembered led to the underground areas. Before she could get far, though, she paused for a moment, looking back at Nick and Judy as she realized that she'd almost forgotten to mention something.

"Hey, did you two happen to get something to eat while you were in town?"

Both Nick and Judy traded glances, realizing that neither of them had actually thought about eating since they'd left for the day. And as if to accentuate their predicament, both of their stomachs immediately rumbled.

"Well, that answers that question." said Bonnie.

"Yeah…it turns out that when you're nose deep in a case like this, you tend to lose track of almost everything else you need to do sometimes." commented Nick.

"That shows how much hard workers you two are. Anyway, before you guys come down to bed, I've thankfully managed to save some food for you guys. I think it should still be warm. It's only been about ten minutes since dinner ended."

"Oh, awesome! Thanks, Mom." said Judy, smiling.

After saying good night to Bonnie, Nick and Judy made their way into the kitchen and had their dinner, which was actually a quiet affair for once considering how used to the insanity the two of them were since they've arrived.

In fact, this enabled them to have a bit of an animated conversation, but in reality it was more small talk than anything. Both Nick and Judy had some ideas about how to proceed with the case, but with their promise to each other (not to mention the fact that discussing an ongoing case in public was just asking for trouble), their topics were a bit limited.

Thankfully, though, they were able to finish their food before they ran out of things to talk about, so as they finished discussing their favorite and least favorite coworkers back at the precinct, they made their way into the kitchen, cleaning off their plates before sticking them in the sink (Bonnie already had the dishwasher running, so they couldn't put their plates in there at the moment).

"Hey Nick, what do you think about getting that will taken care of?" asked Judy as the two of them made their way down the hallway towards the elevators.

Unfortunately, Judy's well-meaning suggestion earned her an audible groan from the fox standing next to her.

"Really? Do we really need to do it now after all we've been through today?"

"It's better to get it out of the way as soon as possible, Nick. Besides, once we get that done that's one less thing to worry about on our vacation."

Judy looked up as she continued walking, trying to discern what Nick was thinking from his expression considering he wasn't exactly talking.

While she wasn't the best at reading expressions compared to Nick, her partner showed just enough with the look on his muzzle that she could tell that he did not want to be here at the moment.

"Come on, Nick, you said you would. Stop procrastinating. Just imagine what you would put your mom through if you got yourself killed and she had to deal with all of the costs."

Nick had come to a stop in the middle of Judy's attempt to convince him to go along with her plan. His expression remained the same as it was a few moments ago, but as Judy came to a stop a few feet in front of him, she noticed that his mask of indifference was starting to show some cracks.

"Alright, alright. I'll do it." he said, giving up. "You know, you're way too good at guilt tripping people sometimes."

A twinge of her own guilt went through Judy as she listened to what Nick said, but she was able to hide it relatively quickly as she went to work.

"Sounds good. I'll go grab my laptop, and we'll get set up in our room."

Without waiting for an answer, Judy jogged past Nick and back into the living room where she'd left it after doing a bit of research this past morning, coming back to the hallway a few minutes later to find Nick still standing there, a bemused look on his muzzle.

"What?" she asked, slightly out of breath from how quickly she was running.

"Oh, nothing." said Nick, noticing how large the computer looked in her arms. "That laptop looks a little big for you, though, doesn't it?"

"It was the smallest one they had. Besides, this was a gift from my parents for graduating the academy."

"And there's nothing wrong with that. I just think that you look adorable carrying that thing around like that."

Nick's light teasing earned a pout from his counterpart, but thankfully she didn't say anything further. Instead, she adjusted her grip on the computer, tucking it under her arm so that it didn't make her look as silly.

This unfortunately made holding it a little difficult considering her arm was barely long enough to wrap around the length of the case, but thankfully as they stepped into the elevator and began making their way down to their floor, Nick decided to step in.

"Here Carrots, let me hold on to that." he said, reaching out with a paw.

Judy was a little reluctant at first to just give up possession of her laptop, considering it was more of a matter of pride than anything, but after some silent wheedling from Nick, she rolled her eyes before handing it over.

Eventually, they finally reached their floor. They were both more than eager to head into their room and call it a night once the will business was done with, but as they turned the corner into their part of the floor, Judy quickly noticed one of the nearby doors open, and her dad pop out as he carefully closed it behind him.

"Hi, Dad!" said Judy cheerfully, bounding forwards to meet him.

Stu was still facing the door when Judy spoke, so he was quickly caught off guard by her sudden entrance. Thankfully, thinking quickly, he spun around to face her, shushing her.

"Oh, sorry." said Judy at a much quieter volume. "I forgot about the kids in there."

"Yeah, Kyle got into the sweets cupboard, and I've been spending the last half an hour trying to get him to work off that sugar high. He'd only just fallen asleep."

His explanation done, Stu stepped forwards, giving Judy a quick hug before continuing to speak.

"But enough about my problems. Where've you been? I was looking around the farm for you guys."

"Yeah, we're sorry about that. I forgot to mention that the sheriff asked us to help out with a case."

"Oh, it's quite alright, Jude. I got some of the others to help out."

"Yeah, Mom mentioned that as well. Are you sure you're going to be alright without us?"

"What do you mean?" asked Stu.

"I mean, we're probably going to be really busy dealing with this case. I know Nick said he'd be willing to help you out if needed, but…" said Judy, trailing off as she let the implications speak for themselves.

"Really, it's not a problem. I've got more than enough help around the farm. I really only needed Nick around because we overestimated the amount of carrots we got from that last harvest."

"Well, I'd be upset with myself if I let it end there considering all that I've done to help, Mr. H, so if you do happen to need any help while we're still in town just let me know, alright?" said Nick, stepping in.

Nick was frankly only partially being truthful saying that, considering he felt that dealing with the case was a way bigger priority than helping out on the farm. However, he was in fact being honest when he said he wouldn't be happy with himself if he managed to escape the backbreaking manual labor in the way that was set out in front of him. His mother taught him better than to do things like that.

"I'll keep that in mind."

After adjusting his grip on the laptop, Nick shook paws with Stu to seal the deal.

"You really know how to pick your partners, Jude. I'm glad to see he's still just as much of a nice mammal as he was since we talked."

Judy was about ready to chide her dad for implying that their relationship was any deeper than it currently was, but her curiosity was piqued after he mentioned their private talk that they had last night."

"Really? What did you guys talk about?"

Judy quickly knew that this wasn't the best way to go about trying to get an answer out of her dad, and as if to prove her point, Stu's expression remained guarded as he answered.

"It's just guy stuff, really. I know that you're curious, but really it's better that you don't know."

Stu's expression then turned apologetic as he placed a paw on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Jude. I really just wanted to keep this whole thing between us private."

"No, it's fine, Dad. I understand."

After hearing Judy's conciliatory tone, Stu couldn't help but smile knowing that things were hopefully going to be okay.

Stu then gave Judy's head fur a playful ruffle before heading towards the elevators.

"Have a good night, you two."

"Good night, Dad." said Judy.

Once Stu disappeared around the corner, Judy couldn't help but stare at the spot where he was not too long before. It didn't take long before another paw landed on her shoulder, though, this time coming from Nick.

"Come on, Carrots. Let's get inside and get started on this thing." he said, using his muzzle to point towards the computer against his chest.

It took a few seconds of silence, but Judy finally turned around, looking up towards Nick as she gave him the best smile she could considering her current mood.

"Yes…let's."

With what he had just watched, Nick was initially a little worried about his partner, but thankfully after seeing what looked like a genuine smile from her, his worries were at least mostly abated.

And so, after heading into their room and plugging the laptop in to the nearest power source, they spent the next couple of hours writing out Nick's will, with Judy helping him out as her partner typed.


	14. Chapter 14

Surprisingly, the will writing proved to be less of a hassle than Nick thought. With his dad nowhere in sight, he felt that his mom was the only relative that actually deserved anything of his, so she ended up getting most of his stuff.

Still, even though he loved his mother more than anything, he wanted to be fair to other mammals that he knew well, so he left some things to Finnick, and some to Judy as well.

That led to a bit of awkwardness between the two of them. Judy clearly didn't expect that her partner would have been willing to share some of his worldly possessions with her. She even tried dissuading him from doing so, but Nick was steadfast in his decision.

So, after some half-hearted attempts to get him to change his mind, Judy gave up and let him have what he wanted.

With the most important things done, it didn't take much longer for them to finish the document. Having already done it before, Judy filled out the rest, which mostly consisted of legal mumbo jumbo and other assorted information.

Eventually, just when Nick was starting to get bored from listening to the clacking of the laptop's keyboard, Judy finally typed out the last words and saved the document, closing the laptop before setting it aside.

"And…done."

"Really? We're all good?" asked Nick.

"Yeah, it's all done. Once we get back to Zootopia, I'll get this printed out, and we'll talk to a lawyer. How does that sound?"

"Sounds great!"

Satisfied, Judy was about ready to hop off of the bed and grab her laptop to set it aside for the night, but before she could do so, she was held back by a paw on her shoulder.

Looking back, she noticed that Nick had reached over to stop her, an earnest look on his face as he met eyes with her.

"Thanks, Judy. Really…I appreciate you helping me out with this."

Judy was noticeably surprised to hear this coming from the normally laid back fox. Not only was that fact surprising, but he also used her real name, which she knew he only did during the rare occasions when he was being serious.

"You're welcome, Nick." she said, too taken aback by the display to put any excitement into her voice.

Thankfully, Nick wasn't really concerned, as he knew how important it was whenever he referred to her by her real name.

Releasing his paw, Nick let her do what she was originally planning to do. While she set the laptop on a nearby table, Nick hopped off of the bed himself, pulling the covers down before removing his shirt.

In a bout of bad timing, Judy had turned around just at the moment he'd went shirtless, and her cheeks immediately went red after seeing how he looked.

Nick had always been one of those long and lanky types, but after his time at the academy and on the job, he was looking noticeably better. In fact, she could see some muscle showing through the fur, and she had to force her eyes away so the situation didn't become more awkward.

Unfortunately for her, Nick noticed her staring. Looking down, he could see where her attention was, and he couldn't resist a bit of teasing.

"You like?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows as he flexed a bit.

"Nick, please!" said Judy, her cheeks becoming redder as she covered her eyes with a paw. "You know what Chief Bogo said about relationships in the workplace!"

"Oh, come on, Carrots. We're about as inseparable as you can get. What's wrong with taking it a little further?"

Nick was admittedly only half joking with that last sentence. Still, he was smart enough not to rush things, as he'd had only too much experience driving females away with his advances.

"Look Nick, I like you, but I don't think I'm at that level yet. Sorry."

"It's fine."

Nick was disappointed to hear this coming from her, but he hid it well, adopting his normal half-lidded look as he hopped into bed.

"G'night, Carrots."

Judy, having uncovered her eyes by this point, didn't move from her spot as she watched Nick's form in the bed.

What she'd said was surprisingly also a half truth. She loved spending time with Nick. Frankly, he was one of the best friends she'd ever had, even if she wanted to strangle him sometimes.

Still, she knew that she'd miss him greatly if he'd ever left, and admitting that she'd had at least some feelings for him was one of those reasons why he'd leave, at least in her mind.

Sighing, she decided that there were more important things to deal with at the moment, so after glancing at Nick's now sleeping form one more time, she slipped into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes.

* * *

The next day came, and Judy woke up, unzipping the sleeping bag and slipping out of it before setting it aside.

Looking towards the bed, she was about ready to say good morning to Nick (mostly in the hopes of eliminating a little of the awkwardness that pervaded between them last night), but surprisingly the bed was empty.

At first, she was a little worried that he wanted some space between them, but after a few seconds of thought, she realized that she was being a dumb bunny again.

One possibility was that Nick was asked to help her dad out again, but she found that unlikely considering Stu had given him the option, and the case was way more important.

Another possibility was that he'd gone up to breakfast, but that was quickly quashed after a check of the time, which revealed that breakfast was in a half an hour, and Nick was never that early for anything.

Judy's mind continued to roll through possible locations for the wayward fox, but in her haste to figure that fact out, she failed to notice the sound of water coming through the doorway nearby, where Nick just happened to be taking a shower.

It didn't take much longer before the water stopped, and Nick stepped out of the bathroom with only a towel around his waist.

"Oh…hey, Carrots."

"Hey. I see you were taking a shower."

"Yep."

Judy was doing her best to put some force into her voice to make it look like she was back to her normal demeanor and they could pretend that last night didn't happen.

Unfortunately, Nick had a different idea. After sighing and glancing away for her for a split second, he returned his focus to her as he began speaking.

"Listen, I just wanted to apologize for the way I was acting last night. I know I don't normally say this, but I was out of line."

"It's alright, Nick. I understand. You were just teasing."

"No, seriously, I-"

"Nick! It's okay." she said, interrupting the fox before he could speak. "I was just caught off guard. You didn't mention anything about sleeping shirtless."

"Well, it's a warm day. Can you blame me?"

"Uh, no. Not really."

Nick stared at Judy, waiting for a few moments to see if her expression would change, but she still had her normal eager demeanor, so he took it as a good sign.

Satisfied, Nick walked over to his suitcase, grabbing another shirt and pants before returning to the bathroom to change.

Once he came back out fully dressed in a blue ZPD-branded T-shirt and blue jeans, he headed towards the door into the hallway before stopping and turning back towards Judy.

"Hey, I'm going to head up to breakfast. Don't take too long getting ready, alright? I think the Sheriff's eager to hear what we've got."

"I'll just be a couple of minutes."

Nodding, Nick made his way through the door, shutting it behind him.

As for Judy, she quickly made her way into the shower, eager to get the day started and get the case moving once more.

* * *

Thankfully, the shower didn't take her too long, and she was able to meet Nick for breakfast just as it started.

Soon after, the two of them quickly headed out after letting Judy's mom know where they were headed.

Judy, wearing a loose-fitting purple sweater over a black tank top and a pair of yoga pants which unfortunately for Nick accentuated her curves, led the way while the two of them made their way into town.

While they were walking, Nick was doing his best not to stare at Judy's butt. Even though she wasn't actually paying attention to what Nick was doing, he wouldn't be able to live with himself otherwise, so he shifted off to the side of Judy's path before keeping his focus on the path in front of him.

Eventually, they made it into town, and in silence they made their way into the police station, which was just as busy as it was yesterday.

After notifying the desk clerk what they were doing, they headed towards the back of the station to find Sheriff Cotton once again sitting at his desk inside his office.

"Oh hey, you two!" greeted Cotton, smiling. "I missed you yesterday."

"Yeah, we're sorry about that. We were out a little later than normal, and we had to get back home." said Judy.

"We do have some pretty juicy details, though." said Nick.

Cotton's eyebrows quickly rose, his interest piqued by the fox's description.

"Really? Well, let me hear about it!"

Judy looked over towards Nick to find that he was already pulling out the relatively full notebook. After handing the notebook over to Cotton, the two of them once again reviewed their findings as the sheriff skimmed his way through all of the pages.

As soon as they were finished speaking, they watched as Cotton flipped through the last of the pages before showing the last filled page to them.

"Which one of you wrote this, by the way?" he asked, gesturing towards the page with his free paw.

"That would be me, sir." said Nick, raising his own paw into the air.

"Well, no offense and all, but your writing deteriorates the later in the notebook you get. I know I said before I'm a listener more than a reader, but we still need to be able to read the notes to get evidence."

Surprised by what the sheriff had said, Nick took the notebook back and looked at the later pages. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the later pages were pretty difficult to read.

"Sorry about that, sheriff. Do you want me to try and rewrite this a little better?" he asked.

"Ah, there's no need. I can read it well enough if I look close. I just wanted to warn you for next time.

"Oh…alright."

Nick was admittedly a little confused as to what was going on, but he kept silent, choosing to keep Cotton's suggestion in mind.

"So…this sounds like something big. Why didn't anyone mention anything about there being more weapons until now?"

"Well, to be fair, you did say you were going by witness accounts and security footage. My guess is that they were good at hiding their weapons from view." said Judy.

"That is true…" mused Cotton. "Well, either way, this is going to make things a little more difficult."

The room fell silent as Nick and Judy watched Cotton think about what they were going to do next.

"I'm going to need some alone time to review the case notes, if you guys don't mind."

"What do you want us to do?" asked Nick.

"Well, what do you think's best? I know I'm technically your higher-up for this case, but if you can think of something important that you guys can do, I'm all ears."

Cotton couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the corny joke, but it didn't take much longer before he was back to business. Folding his paws together, Cotton watched as Nick and Judy silently debated on what to do next.

"Well, I suppose we could take a look at the security footage."

"Okay, fair enough. I don't know what else you guys can get from it, to be honest, but be my guest."

Slipping out of his seat, the sheriff made his way around the desk, opening the door and gesturing for Nick and Judy to make their way out.

"Go speak to the desk sergeant on the way out. He'll get you set up in the AV room."

The two of them nodded before making their way out of the office. As they shuffled their way through the mess of bodies towards the front desk, they heard the door to Sheriff Cotton's office slam shut.

Both of them heard the noise despite the general bustle of the station, but after a few seconds sharing a look, they both silently agreed not to think about what was going on with the sheriff, and they continued on their way.

Soon enough, after speaking with the desk sergeant, a sheep by the name of Herbert Shear, they were inside the AV room, a comparatively small room compared to the outside. There they were set in front of a television with a set of VHS tapes sitting nearby marked with the names of the stores they were able to get the footage from.

"Really? There's no DVDs or anything? It's not 1990." commented Nick.

This comment earned him a punch in the shoulder from Judy, but thankfully Shear didn't look like he was offended. Either that, or he was good at not showing it.

"Don't blame me." said Shear. "The only store that even had the footage on DVD was Gideon's, and that's only because he'd had his store for a year and a half."

"Alright, that's fine." said Nick as he rubbed his arm where the punch landed. "I guess we can work around that."

Shear's only real reply to Nick was a glare, as the sheep didn't look like he was fond of Nick's attitude.

Still, he had a job to do, so in an attempt to ignore Nick, Shear focused his attention on Judy. His expression didn't change, but it didn't get any worse as she addressed her.

"Once you're done, put the tapes back in the closet over there." he said, pointing with a hoof to the closet in question. "They're in alphabetical order, but I left spaces where they should go. They should be easy enough to find, I guess."

While Judy was admittedly a little put off by Shear's less-than enthusiastic attitude, she knew that she had no basis to act considering how Nick acted a few moments ago.

Nodding, she waited as Shear left the room and shut the door, allowing them some privacy and quiet so that they would be able to hear each other speak.

Sighing, Judy waited for a few moments before turning towards Nick.

"You know, you didn't have to offend him like that, Nick. Bunnyburrow might be less advanced than Zootopia, but we try our best."

"Alright, I'm sorry, Fluff. It was just a harmless joke, and it went a little too far."

"Alright…I understand. Now, let's get started on these tapes. I want to get some more stuff done out in town once we're done."

"Fair enough. So, which one shall we watch first?"

Pausing, Judy scanned the titles of each of the tapes before picking one out at random. After studying the tape for a few moments, she stuck it inside the tape player.

As the video began to play, the two of them glanced at each other before they began watching, hoping to find something that will help their case.


	15. Chapter 15

With the AV room thankfully insulated from all of the chaos going on outside, Judy and Nick were free to fully concentrate on the tapes being played in front of them.

Unfortunately, at first they weren't able to get much out of them. With their less than ideal method of studying the tapes (being a simple television set and combination VHS/DVD player), the two of them were forced to study the footage as closely as possible so as to avoid accidentally missing their chance to stop the tape and look closer.

This led to a majority of their time in the room spent in silence. While it did help keep them focused on the task in front of them, it also made the task incredibly dull and monotonous, which Nick clearly wanted to voice his concerns with.

"Carrots, this is pointless!" he said during a lull in the action while Judy was switching tapes. "I haven't seen anything worth looking into that we don't already know about."

"I know, Nick. I'm not thrilled about it, either, but we should at least finish watching the rest of these tapes. We do have to cover all of our bases."

Judy's comment was met with a heavy sigh from her partner, but thankfully he remained silent after that, allowing her to hit play on the VHS and sit back.

Unluckily, though, the rest of the VHS tapes were just as empty of interesting details as the others they've already watched, and it was starting to irritate Judy to no end. However, in an attempt to prevent Nick from rubbing the fact that he was right in her face, she kept silent.

Pausing in her almost robotic motions, she looked down at the table where the tapes were originally set, noticing the now miniscule pile of unwatched tapes compared to what was left.

"How long have we been in here?" she asked, her attention partially on the pile in front of her as she addressed the fox next to her.

There was a pause, the only sound outside of the turned down volume of the static on the TV being rustling as Nick dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

"Around two hours. Why?" he asked.

"Um…no reason. It just felt like longer."

Judy was admittedly a little surprised that so little time had passed since they'd entered the room. Sure, doing the same thing repeatedly can tend to wear on your nerves and make it feel like time was passing way faster than it should, but it still felt a little weird for her.

Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she looked down at the pile of remaining tapes and noticed that the last tape just so coincidentally happened to be the one for Gideon's bakery.

"Well…what do you say we check out what Gideon was up to?" she asked, holding up the jewel case containing the DVD as she addressed Nick.

While they did have a general idea of what happened considering their interview with him, Nick couldn't help but be a little curious, staring wide-eyed as he watched Judy open the DVD side of the player and stick the disc in.

The first thing that they noticed the higher quality of the footage, but neither of them commented on it considering they were both well aware of the differences in quality between the two formats.

The interesting thing, though, was that it also made the video a lot easier to see clearly. Before, the only thing that they could see without having to squint was the robbery in progress. Now, while they still had to squint, they could read some of the writing inside the cases that denoted each of the pastries being sold.

Watching the footage closely, both Judy and Nick were trying desperately to see anything that looked out of place, just so their foray wasn't a complete waste of time.

Thankfully, they didn't have much footage to go through, considering the perpetrator came into the store at a relatively early point in the video.

The two of them watched as the robber demanded Gideon's money, eventually pulling out a gun when the portly fox refused to comply. They could see Gideon's paws held up above him, even despite the suspect blocking most of the view with his or her body. It didn't take much longer, though, before a lapse in concentration on the part of the robber led to Gideon making the attempt to disarm him.

There was a struggle over the gun for a few moments before there was a blinding flash from the barrel as the gun went off, sending Gideon reeling back as he clutched at his bleeding arm.

Wincing, Judy briefly considered just stopping the video right there, but she held herself back when she saw Gideon make another attempt to stop the robber, lunging over the counter as he tried to prevent them from making a grab for the cash register.

Quickly pausing the video, Judy quickly looked over towards Nick to find the fox cop bemused as he studied the frozen image on the screen in front of him.

"Well, there's something new…" he said after a few moments of silence.

"Why didn't he say anything about that, though?" asked Judy, gesturing with a paw towards the screen.

"Well, to be fair, we _were_ a little too worried about his actual injuries to get everything about what happened."

"Do you think we should talk to him about it?"

Nick paused, briefly considering whether to go along with what she was asking.

"Nah, I think he got the point. Besides, he's been through enough today."

"Alright, I guess."

Judy didn't seem convinced that following along with what Nick said was the best course of action, but she couldn't think of a reason to argue his point, so she remained seated as she returned her focus to the screen and hit play once more.

Just as the video started to play again and Judy watched Gideon getting smashed across the muzzle with the butt of the suspect's gun, she nearly jumped when Nick spoke up.

"Stop the video!"

It took a second for her to react, but she eventually did hit the pause button, freezing the video on a somewhat gruesome tableau, with Gideon on the floor clutching at his jaw while the robber helped himself or herself to the money.

"What? What is it?" asked Judy, caught off guard by the sudden change in Nick's demeanor.

"Send it back a little bit. I think I saw something."

Judy did as Nick asked, hitting rewind on the remote.

The next few minutes were spent with Nick directing Judy to repeatedly redirect the footage in different directions, wanting to get the exact spot so he could make sure that what he thought he saw was in fact real.

It got to the point where even Judy was starting to get aggravated by how cagey he was being, but thankfully after a quick scan of the remote in her paw, she suddenly realized that there was a frame skip button near the bottom.

Admittedly a little embarrassed that she failed to notice that button at first, she started repeatedly hitting said button, watching as the footage slowly started playing again frame by frame.

"Okay…stop!"

The footage came to a stop, and after looking over at Nick, the smile on his muzzle told her that they were now in the right place.

"Alright, would you mind telling me what the big deal is that we had to go through all that?" she asked, slightly miffed that they had to go through that whole ordeal.

"Simple. Take a look at the guy's arm that's holding the gun." said Nick, pointing towards the screen.

Confused, Judy stared at Nick for a few moments, wondering just what was going on inside his head. She eventually did do as he asked, though.

When she got a good look at where Nick was asking, her eyes widened in surprise when she saw some sort of tattoo poking out from under their sleeve.

At first, she began to think that there was some kind of special meaning to the ink. Before she could get too worked up, though, she soon realized that she might just be jumping to conclusions, which was one of the first things she was taught to avoid back at the academy.

After taking a breath to calm herself down, she closed her eyes for a few moments before turning back towards her partner, calmly explaining her thoughts.

"I get what you're trying to say, Nick, but what if it was just a random tattoo? I mean, I know not everyone actually has one, but we have brought down a fair share of criminals that do have them back in town. Remember?"

"Okay, to be fair, that is true, but I haven't seen that one around before." he said, pointing towards the mark on the screen.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure if you've forgotten or not, Fluff, but I've been on the streets for almost twenty years. You have to get involved with some very shady characters to be able to survive for that long."

"Okay, so what's your point?"

"I've seen a lot of tattoos and things that most mammals wear to show that they're a part of certain gangs, not to mention all of the ones that I've seen back at the academy. This one is completely new, though. I'm betting it must be some kind of new gang or something. That's just a guess, though."

Judy quickly fell silent, her other arguments much more limited thanks to Nick's crystal clear explanation. Still, she had at least one question in her mind.

"Okay, that's fair, but what if he was the only one who had it?"

"Well, do you want to recheck the rest of the videos and see?" said Nick, gesturing towards the already watched pile nearby.

Judy didn't look too thrilled with the prospect of having to go through that pile again, but if it meant having another important clue to go on, she was just going to have to grin and bear it.

Before she could make a move to take the disc out of the player, though, Nick held up a paw to stop her, the fox quickly speaking up before she could ask why he did what he just did.

"Can you draw decently, Carrots?"

"I like to think so, why?" she asked, slightly puzzled.

Instead of answering immediately, Nick pulled out his notebook, flipping to a page that had some space to work with before handing it over to Judy.

"See if you can draw that tattoo on here. I think we should probably show this to Sheriff Cotton before we do anything about it."

"Why can't you draw it?" she asked, slightly suspicious.

"Carrots, if you've seen the drawings I've made in art class back in elementary school, I'm sure you'll understand."

Even though Nick was a little too vague for her liking, she could see his point. Even though her mother was more than happy to display some of the "art" she'd made back when she was a kit, she was smart for her age, and she knew how horrible they looked. She'd only managed to improve her skills after joining an art group a few months before leaving town for the academy.

Sighing, Judy grabbed her carrot pen, pushing her chair closer to the TV so she could hop on and get a closer look at the tattoo in question.

After a few minutes of silence, where the only real sound was the scratching of Judy's pen, she finally managed to finish, holding the notebook up next to the screen to compare her drawing to the actual tattoo.

"What do you think?" she asked, showing the drawing to Nick, who studied it for a few moments.

"Not bad, Fluff. It's probably the closest we're going to get outside of actually seeing one in person, but still, it looks pretty good."

Judy had to resist the urge to blush due to the earnest compliment coming from her partner.

Clearing her throat, she decided it was probably best to move on before things got awkward, so after setting the notebook down on the seat in front of her, Judy pushed the seat back to its original place before removing the DVD from the tray and switching it out with one of the VHS tapes.

In the interest of time (and avoiding driving themselves crazy from the monotony), the two of them skipped to the moment when the perpetrators were going through with the robberies, watching closely to see whether the tattoo they saw on the suspect in Gideon's store would appear on any of their bodies.

Luckily, while the lower quality did make actually picking out unclear things more difficult for the two of them, they were able to pick out at least a couple of the robbers who had the same tattoo. They weren't in the same exact spot as the first one, to be fair, but the fact that they did exist on enough of the suspects was enough to convince Judy that something was going on.

"Alright, I think that's good enough." she said, hitting stop on the remote before setting it down next to her.

"So you finally see the light. That's good to hear."

"Okay, yeah…I'll admit it. You're right. Besides, I think my butt's starting to hurt from how long we've been sitting in these chairs."

Nick was admittedly fully prepared to celebrate getting one over on Judy, but after hearing her offhanded comment about her sore butt, he couldn't resist giggling a little bit at the juvenile nature.

Thankfully, he was more mature than that (or at least he liked to think so), so he fell silent after not much longer.

"Come on, let's get all this stuff cleaned up before we go see Cotton." he commented.

Judy quickly agreed, preparing herself to push her chair back to where she found it. However, the serious moment was ruined when Nick got up out of his chair, an audible grunt coming from his maw as he straightened himself out.

"Wow, they really need to invest in some more comfortable chairs in here. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to be able to sit down again."

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Nick." chided Judy through muffled giggles, barely able to resist the fox's usual charm.

"Hey, if it gets you like this, I'll be the biggest baby that you've ever known." said Nick jokingly.

As he spoke, Nick kept himself busy by storing the tapes away in the cupboard where they were asked to return them to. Thankfully, the empty space where they were supposed to go was still there, so they didn't have to worry too much about figuring out how to alphabetize them.

Once the two of them finished what they were doing at first, the two of them worked together to push the television set (which was way taller than the both of them) off to the back corner so that it wouldn't be in the way of anyone who needed to use it in the future.

"Ready to go, Carrots?" asked Nick, smiling after brushing himself off from the work they just went through.

Judy was about to answer in the affirmative, but stopped herself when she realized she accidentally left the notebook on the chair.

Rushing over, she quickly grabbed it and slipped it into her pocket before returning to a bemused Nick.

"Now I'm ready." she said, letting out a breath as she composed herself.

Shrugging, Nick decided to remain silent, leading the way as the two of them made their way back over to Sheriff Cotton's office, ready to share the new information they've learned.


	16. Chapter 16

Luckily Nick and Judy didn't have to go too far to find Sheriff Cotton, as the old bunny was still inside his office, sitting at his desk as his attention was on the paperwork he was busy filing away.

"Sheriff Cotton?" asked Judy quietly, unsure about whether or not he wanted to be bothered.

Thankfully, it didn't appear to be that way, as when the sheriff looked up, he smiled as he saw the two of them standing in the doorway.

"You're back. I thought you said you were going to head out after you were done taking a look at the security tapes."

"We will." said Judy more matter-of-factly. "We just found something that I think you want to look at."

Puzzled, Cotton remained silent, watching as Judy flipped to one of the pages in her notebook before handing it over to him.

Looking down at the paper, Cotton studied the picture for a minute or so, his brows furrowed as he tried to figure out the reasoning behind what they were showing him.

"Why are you showing me a drawing of a sun?" he asked, puzzled. "I see it every day on the way here, so I'm pretty sure I know what it looks like."

"I-it's not just any sun." said Judy, slightly caught off guard by Cotton's reaction.

"Oh yeah? Then what is it?"

"Well, you know how most mammals tend to get some kind of marking or tattoo to show that they're part of a certain gang?" asked Nick, stepping in.

Cotton nodded, remaining silent even though his expression was telling the two of them that he wasn't too happy.

"We think that the suspects involved with the string of robberies are part of a new gang that hasn't quite been established as of yet. That is, at least judging by what Judy and I know about already established gangs in the city."

The room fell silent as Judy and Nick waited to see what Cotton would say about their theory.

The old bunny did open his mouth, preparing to say something, but unfortunately it was quickly shut as his expression turned into one of mild annoyance as he debated whether this was worth following through on.

Finally, a heavy sigh came from the sheriff as he grasped at his head with his paws, rubbing his temples to relieve an oncoming headache.

"Can you two please explain how you got to this conclusion?"

Cotton opened his eyes, ready to listen to their explanation, but after seeing the puzzled looks from the fox and bunny in front of him, he was forced to explain himself.

"Look, I'm not saying I don't believe you…at least not yet. I'll be honest, though. This story seems so out of left field that I'm surprised that you're not just playing a practical joke on me."

Judy opened her mouth to protest Cotton's characterization of their theory, but the sheriff held up a paw to silence her.

"Please, I don't want to hear you try to explain this borderline crackpot theory. I just want some evidence. Now explain."

Cotton then fell silent, holding his arms out to the side as he gestured for Judy and Nick to speak.

The two partners quickly looked at each other, unsure of how to go about this new task. Eventually, though, there was a silent nod between them before Judy stepped forwards, breathing in before she finally began speaking.

"Well, we were looking through all of the tapes that you guys had, just as we said we would. We didn't get a whole lot out of them, but when we got to the tape from Gideon's place, Nick here spotted a tattoo on the suspect's shoulder that looked just like that."

"What if it's just a random occurrence?" asked Cotton. "It might just have been the one suspect who had it, so really it doesn't seem all that special."

"Well, we thought of that as well, so we rechecked all of the other tapes. Most of the suspects we saw managed to keep themselves completely covered, but we saw at least a few of them that had the same tattoo." said Nick.

"They weren't all in the same place as Gideon's, but the fact that they were all there was definitely interesting."

After Judy finished speaking, the two of them watched as Cotton once again remained silent, mulling these new details inside his head as he held his clasped paws in front of his mouth.

Eventually, though, he did lower his arms, heaving another sigh before looking up towards the two on vacation officers in front of him.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not still entirely convinced that this is anything worth following up on."

Judy quickly opened her mouth to argue in a desperate attempt to get Cotton to see their side, but before she could speak, the old sheriff held up a paw to silence her.

"However, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'll have Officer Shear take a look at Gid's tape and see what he can get from it. He's our most knowledgeable officer when it comes to gang activity outside of myself."

"Do you need us to do anything?" asked Judy, her hopes building now that she knew that Cotton wasn't completely shutting down their theory.

"Well, I did originally have plans for you guys to go and see if you can bring Travis into the station for questioning, but unfortunately that's going to have to wait."

"Why's that?" asked Judy, puzzled as she traded looks with Nick.

"Turns out I got a call from the Fluffer family at the general store about a half an hour ago. The owners have returned to manning the shop this morning, but they've requested security detail. I tried to tell them that we're swamped as is, but they wouldn't listen."

"So, I'm guessing this means that you want us to take care of it?" asked Nick.

"Yes, that's correct. I'm sorry to have to ask this of you, but they specifically requested you guys."

"Must've been because of Harry." said Nick under his breath in Judy's direction.

The rabbit unfortunately ignored Nick's comment, as she was more concerned about something else.

"What about the case, though? We've only got about four more days before we have to go back to Zootopia, and we've barely gotten moving with this."

"Look, if it'll make you happy, I'll see what I can do about sparing a couple of officers to take a look around the outskirts of town. It seems like the most likely place a gang would have their hideout or whatever they call it these days."

"Thank you." said Judy, smiling now that she knew that they weren't wasting valuable time. "We really appreciate it, sir."

"Don't mention it. And don't call me sir, either. It makes me feel way too old."

"Oh, sorry about that."

Even though she had no real idea of Sheriff Cotton's preference for how he wanted to be referred as, she was admittedly still a little upset at herself for doing that.

Thankfully, though, she pushed those worries to the back of her mind, as she was more concerned with the task put ahead of them.

"Listen, we'll head over to the general store right now. Come on, Car…Hopps, let's go." said Nick, nearly calling her by her nickname in his haste to get moving.

Judy was a bit caught off guard by the sudden nature of her being pulled out of her thoughts, so Nick ended up having to push her towards the door for the first few feet. Luckily, though, she managed to pull herself together just as they crossed through the doorway, walking under her own power as they made their way through the station.

Once the two of them managed to escape the surprisingly stuffy police station, they began making their towards the general store.

Unfortunately for Judy's nerves, it didn't take long before Nick decided to make a snide comment, the fact that he had to drag her out of the office not lost on his mind.

"You know, for someone half my size, you can really dig in your heels when you want to. What was the deal with that, anyway?"

"Oh, uh…it was nothing, really." said Judy, not really expecting to have to explain her reaction. "I just had one of my 'cop moments' as you call them when I accidentally called the sheriff 'sir'."

"Come on, Fluff, you couldn't have known. I don't think he even mentioned anything about that since we even got here."

"Yeah, I know. I was just being stupid. Don't worry about me, honest."

Nick stared at Judy for a moment, unsure if he should follow Judy's request, but after a few seconds where it looked like Judy was acting like her normal self, the tense feeling in his shoulders evaporated as he relaxed.

With how she was acting over the last few days, Nick frankly wouldn't have been surprised if he would have needed to talk her down from the cliff again (theoretically), but luckily it didn't go anywhere near that bad.

It was just in time, too, as they finally came up the front steps of the general store just a few moments after finishing their conversation, bounding through the door as they went up the counter to greet the returning owners.

"Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Fluffer! Glad to see you two are back up and running." said Nick, putting on a show of looking cheerful despite not being thrilled to have to do a job this dull.

With how Harry described their actions when they spoke, both Judy and Nick were fully expecting the two to be in at least a half zombie-like state if not a full one, especially after the frightening experience they just went through two days ago.

Shockingly, though, they seemed to be functioning all right, at least for the most part. Sure, their body language looked more subdued than a normal mammal would be acting at this time of the day, but the fact that they were both busy manning the store was something they really didn't expect to see so soon.

"Oh hello, you two!" said Mrs. Fluffer, smiling after turning around and noticing the guests in front of them. "Harry told me all about how you guys helped him out yesterday with our problems."

"I'm assuming that Harry must have something to do with you guys being up so quickly?" asked Judy as the two of them shook paws with the rabbits behind the counter. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see you two are alright, but it seems like you guys might have rushed things a bit, especially considering the suspects are still at large."

A small flash of worry passed by both of the Fluffers at the mention of the suspects, but it was quickly quashed as their expressions remained neutral.

"Oh no, we're quite alright. Harry was a big help, though. He talked to us last night, helped convince us that it was time to return to work and put what happened behind us."

"That's good to hear." commented Nick. "I was a little worried when Harry was talking about what was going on with you two."

The conversation stopped right there, and Nick and Judy prepared to make their way out of the door to start their detail. However, before they could get too far, a question popped into Judy's head, Nick's last sentence reminding her of something important.

"Are you sure you're alright with talking with us? Your son did tell us about the suspect threatening your lives if you went to the police, and we're technically police even though we're not here on an official basis."

Mrs. Fluffer noticeably blanched after hearing the statement from Judy, but it wasn't long before her husband stepped in, placing his paws on her shoulders as he blocked her from Nick and Judy's view.

The next few minutes were spent with the two of them watching Mr. Fluffer's back as he worked on calming his scared wife down, the only noise they could hear being the quiet words he spoke over her dry sobs.

Eventually, the two separated, Mr. Fluffer returning to his original position as Mrs. Fluffer appeared to be alright outside of a few tear stains dotting her face.

"I apologize for that. My wife has been having a bit of trouble getting over what happened. She gets upset whenever somebody mentions what they said to us."

Judy quickly shot a look of sympathy in Mrs. Fluffer's direction, silently apologizing for putting her through all of that. The look quickly changed to one of concern, though, when she turned to face her husband.

"Are you sure she should be out working right now? She should really go see a psychiatrist. I'm worried she might have PTSD."

"Well, we would, but the nearest one is all the way out in Foxbourough, and you know how the foxes there act whenever a bunny comes through. Plus, we don't exactly make enough money to be able to afford one."

"That's a shame." said Judy, clearly remembering some difficult times she'd had back when she was still a kit and she had to help her dad deliver some produce to the town.

"Well, we'd better get started." said Nick, wanting to get outside as soon as possible before the conversation got even more depressing. "Are you two going to be alright in here?"

Both Fluffers nodded, and Nick quickly led Judy out of the doorway, positioning her on one side of the doorway as he took his own position on the other.

"You know, I could've walked outside myself." commented Judy, slightly miffed at his less than cordial treatment of her.

"I'm sorry, Carrots, but I thought it was best to leave them alone, especially after seeing how fragile the wife was."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that." said Judy, her annoyance quickly dissipating as her focus turned to the older female rabbit. "You'd think that Mr. Fluffer would just man the store himself if the robbery was affecting his wife as much as it had. Heck, he could have even asked Harry to help him out if need be."

"Well, I'm not thrilled about it either, Fluff, but there's nothing we can do about it now without overstepping our boundaries."

"Yeah, I know." said Judy, disappointed. "It sucks, though."

Nick shared a look of sympathy with her before returning his focus to the town around him, scanning the area as he watched for any signs of suspicious activity.

After a few seconds spent lost in thought, Judy decided it wasn't worth mulling over her worries about the state of the rabbits they were protecting at the moment, so she focused her attention on her surroundings as well, paying close attention to who was going in the store to see who appeared to have nefarious intentions.

Unfortunately, the first hour or so was incredibly uneventful. The only odd thing that really happened were some scattered conversations between the Fluffers and the patrons, and that was mostly questions about why Nick and Judy were there.

It got so dull that Nick was briefly considering asking Judy if she wanted him to get something for her, especially with the weather being as warm as it was.

He never really got the chance, though, as when he turned to ask, he saw Judy's head on a swivel, watching a badger walking by. However, once he managed to get a good look at the character in question, he began to understand why she seemed so interested.

On the badger's right forearm was the exact tattoo that had them so befuddled earlier in the morning, and they both knew that something was up.

In a slight panic, Nick wondered whether it was best for them to follow the badger to see where he went when they were still trying to protect the Fluffer's.

Before he could actually debate the merits of each side, though, Judy beat him to the bunch, stepping forwards as she raised a paw into the air to catch his attention.

"Excuse me, sir? Can we ask you some questions?"

What came next was a bit unexpected, as instead of replying, the badger's eyes immediately widened in surprise before he suddenly shot off running, having clearly noticed the bunny attempting to address him.

Not wasting a beat, Judy shot off after him.

"Carrots, wait!"

Judy barely even heard Nick's call, leaving the fox by himself as she and the suspect disappeared around the corner. He knew that he should be following his partner so that he could serve as backup, but with how troubled the Fluffer's were after what happened, he knew that he would make things worse if he left.

So, reluctantly, Nick stayed where he was, silently grumbling to himself as he hoped that Judy would be alright.


	17. Chapter 17

Minutes passed as Nick stood in front of the general store, doing his best to concentrate on protecting the Fluffers from anyone who would wish to hurt them like the robbers did.

However, as much as he tried, his mind couldn't help but wander, as his attention was split between his job and what was going on with Judy.

Sure, he felt like he was making the right choice by sticking around. He honestly didn't want to think about the possibility of having to explain to the two old bunnies why they had to ditch the store, especially with the expressions he was picturing them wearing.

Still, it didn't take very long before Judy's safety was brought right up to the front of his mind. There was no guarantee that the suspect had anything that would threaten her life, but then again, Nick's thoughts did end up going to some pretty horrible places despite his every effort to avoid doing so.

Finally having had enough of the mixed emotions he was going through, Nick quickly peeled away from the spot where he was standing, rushing off in the direction he saw Judy and the perp going.

"She's never going to let me hear the end of this." said Nick to himself as he picked up speed, mentally preparing himself for the inevitable tongue-lashing he was going to get from the career-focused bunny.

* * *

As Nick desperately tried to catch up with Judy, the bunny herself was still very much hot on the tail of the badger, considering he was double her size.

Just as they were about to reach the edge of the town (and just as Judy was beginning to wish she had her tranquilizer gun with her), the badger somehow managed to get a second wind, pouring on speed as he was heading towards a ramshackle house that Judy couldn't recall ever having been occupied, at least in the last few years.

Picking up speed, Judy tried her best to make up the distance between her and the badger, hoping that she would be able to catch up before he made it to said house.

She was fully expecting for him to go inside and make an attempt to hide within its dark depths, forcing her to have to find him without anything that she could use to defend herself.

To her surprise, though, the suspect instead veered off to the left, making his way around the house before disappearing around the back.

Ignoring her urge to contemplate why he decided to go that way, Judy kept up her speed as she made her way towards the back of the house.

As she finally made her way past the house, though (fully expecting to see the badger a couple of feet in front of her so that she could continue the chase), she was instead surprised to find that he was absolutely nowhere in sight.

"What the-"

In a state of confusion, Judy came to a stop, standing behind the dilapidated house as she scanned the area around her.

"Come on, Judy." she said to herself. "He's got to be here somewhere. Mammals that size can't just disappear into thin air."

However, as much as she tried to prove that fact, it seemed increasingly likely that the badger did in fact disappear.

Biting back a swear, Judy briefly considered heading back to rejoin Nick and hope that the Fluffers wouldn't be too mad about her ditching them, but her curiosity quickly overcame her, as she knew that there had to be some explanation as to how the badger managed to give her the slip.

Judy began studying the house, carefully knocking the wood paneling every so often to see if there was anything odd going on.

She was so focused on her task, she failed to even notice Nick coming around the side of the building, placing his paws on his knees as he took a few moments to catch his breath after the burst of speed he put on trying to catch up to her.

"Hey Carrots," he said through gulps of air. "You do know that the door's on the other side of the building, right?"

Just as Nick was expecting, Judy nearly jumped out of her skin in fright. Somehow, though, she managed to keep her composure steady, wheeling around to face her partner as she adopted a forceful tone in her voice.

"What are you doing here, Nick? You were supposed to be guarding the general store!"

Nick, having finally managed to catch his breath and straighten himself back up, looked slightly miffed as he stared down at the smaller mammal.

"No, I believe it was both our jobs, and you ran off to chase that badger guy, so I do believe that you have no right to complain. Besides, you never did tell me to stay, so hah." he said, poking her on the nose to emphasize his point.

Thankfully, the minor argument didn't get any worse than that, as Judy simply rolled her eyes before letting the subject go.

"Speaking of, where did that badger go?" asked Nick, fully expecting to see an incapacitated badger somewhere around them.

"Honestly, I don't know." said Judy, shrugging. "I followed him around this house, and when I reached the backyard, he was gone."

"That's…odd." said Nick, a puzzled look on his face as he glanced over at the back wall of said house.

"You're telling me. I've been spending the last fifteen minutes looking for something like false walls…or maybe secret holes or something."

"Are you serious? Why would a gang use stuff like that? The ones we've seen aren't usually that secretive."

"Well, if you have any better ideas as to how a two hundred or so pound badger managed to disappear into thin air, I'm all ears."

Nick couldn't resist chuckling a bit, causing Judy to groan when she realized that she'd involuntarily made a bad pun.

"Just help me look around, Nick."

"Shouldn't we be getting back to the general store, Carrots? I'm pretty sure if the Fluffers aren't already mad at us, they probably will be soon once they find out we're not there."

Frankly, Judy was more concerned with what was in front of her, but she realized that Nick did have a point, especially with the way the two older bunnies were acting recently.

Reluctantly, Judy stood up, making a mental note to come back here when she had time before joining Nick as the two of them made their way back to the general store.

"Hey, Carrots?"

Judy was in the middle of trying to think of a good explanation for their disappearance that wouldn't get them chewed out by the two owners, so it took her a few moments to realize that Nick was trying to speak with her.

"Yeah?"

"I forgot to mention, there's another reason I came after you."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"We're partners, remember? We got to watch each other's backs."

Judy clearly remembered that part of her training, but she couldn't help blushing a little bit knowing that her protection was one of his higher priorities in life.

Thankfully, Nick's attention was on the road in front of him, so she luckily managed to avoid having to answer any of the awkward questions that she believed would have come if he'd noticed the tinge of pink.

* * *

Just as both Nick and Judy predicted, Mr. and Mrs. Fluffer were none too happy to see them once they returned to the general store.

"Where have you two been? I came out to check up on you two ten minutes ago and you were both gone! I was about ready to call the sheriff!"

"Listen, Mr. Fluffer, we're both very sorry about having to leave our post outside. Honestly, it's more my fault than anything." said Judy, holding up her paws in a placating gesture. "I saw somebody walking by who had something on his person that matched a recent clue we found. I tried to ask him some questions, but he ran, so I had to chase after him."

Judy inwardly hoped that she was just vague enough that she wouldn't get in trouble for sharing details of a case with a civilian. Judging from the unhappy look on the male rabbit's face, she apparently needn't have worried, as the details were the least of his concerns.

"Alright, if you say it's your fault, then why did he leave?" he asked, pointing towards Nick. "My wife and I would have preferred having the both of you here, but we wouldn't have minded if we had at least one of you keeping us safe."

Judy opened her mouth, fully prepared to find a way to cover for her partner's absence, but to her surprise, Nick stepped in, beating her to the punch.

"Sir, she's my partner." he said, retaining a formal tone despite his expression telling her that he was getting tired of having to deal with this situation. "Us officers have to look out for each other, and frankly I wouldn't be able to live with myself if she got hurt and I wasn't there to protect her."

Despite the air of exasperation in his voice, Judy couldn't help but feel a swell of pride seeing how much Nick has changed over the past six months.

To be fair, a good part of it had to do with her intervention, but from her past interactions with him, she could tell that the fox just needed someone to push him in the right direction, and she honestly was happy that she was the one to make that push.

Mr. Fluffer, despite completely understanding where he was coming from, was still more concerned with his and his wife's safety, so the weak excuse (at least in his opinion) wasn't going to fly.

"But what about us?"

"Robert, please, just leave it alone for once in your life!" said Mrs. Fluffer, unable to stand being on the sidelines of the conversation any longer. "We can't rely on the police forever! We're going to have to let them go if we want to get back to some semblance of our normal lives."

"Marilyn, seriously." said Mr. Fluffer, turning towards his wife. "How can we get back to a normal life when the mammals who robbed us are still on the loose?"

"Mr. Fluffer, it's not good for your health to live in constant fear of getting robbed again." said Nick, stepping in before the conversation between the husband and wife devolved into an argument.

"Officer Wilde is right." said Judy, catching on. "You need to show those robbers that you're not afraid, and you're not going to let them get to you ever again. Living the way you're doing now would just make you an easier target for mammals like them."

The room fell silent as Mr. Fluffer considered the two officer's words, a dry gulp the only real sound that they could hear within the figurative circle they were in.

"You're right."

Both the fox and the bunny's eyes widened, not expecting the stubborn old rabbit to change his mind so quickly. However, they never really got the chance to comment, as Mrs. Fluffer came between the two of them, immediately wrapping her arms around his waist in an unmistakable hug.

"Oh Robert, I'm so glad you understand!"

"Never mind me, Marilyn." said Robert, staring at his wife with a slightly perplexed look etched on his face. "Are you doing alright? I'm concerned about you, especially with the way you were acting earlier today."

"Well, these two convinced me." she said, pointing towards Nick and Judy, who replied with looks of a mix of puzzlement and satisfaction. "I may not be perfectly okay, but I need to stand up to the evils of the world if I'm going to continue to have a normal life with you."

Elated that his wife was finally realizing what she needed to do, Mr. Fluffer returned the hug, planting a kiss on her lips as they enjoyed the moment they were having together.

As for Judy and Nick, the two of them traded looks, both feeling like it would be better if they left the two owners to their own devices.

"Hey, listen. If it's alright with you two, Nick and I are going to head out." said Judy, adopting a soft tone in her voice mostly to avoid making it look like she was butting in.

"Of course. Thank you two for everything." said Mrs. Fluffer, smiling as she looked over at the two officers.

A smile on her face, Judy nodded before heading out of the door, Nick following close behind after acknowledging the two lovebirds with a two fingered salute.

* * *

As the two officers made their way out of the general store and back into town, Judy turned her head towards her partner as she voiced a question that was on her mind since they'd left.

"So, since we're now free, what do you say we head back to that house and see if we can find how that badger ditched us?"

Nick appeared as if he was definitely up for doing that, but as he turned to give his answer, he noticed that the sun was in the middle of setting for the night, which came as a bit of a surprise to him.

Checking his phone for the time, Nick sighed before turning back towards Judy.

"Looks like it's getting late, Fluff. We should probably save it for tomorrow."

Judy had also noticed the setting sun as well, groaning in disappointment before turning in the other direction.

"Well, we should at least check in with the sheriff before we head home. I doubt he'd be happy if we left him hanging two days in a row."

"Yeah, you're right. One Buffalo Butt is more than enough."

That comment earned him a look of disapproval from the young doe.

"What? He's not here, isn't he? I mean, I think that gives me a bit of a right to be less formal when he doesn't know that I am."

"What if I tell him, though?" asked Judy, a sly smirk on her face.

"You'd better not." said Nick, a look of mock outrage on his.

"Alright, I won't." she said, shrugging. "I'm sure he won't care, anyway."

"Yeah, that is true."

The two of them paused in their tracks for a few moments, thinking for a few moments before Nick decided to speak up.

"Come on, let's get going. Honestly, I'm kind of eager to see what the officers he sent out found out about the case."

"Oh yeah, that is true. I almost forgot that he sent them out to cover for us while we were busy."

With a new pep in her step thanks to the possible prospect of new information, Judy followed nearby as her and Nick made their way to the police station, hoping that they didn't miss the sheriff.


	18. Chapter 18

As the sun set on yet another beautiful day, Nick and Judy stepped out of the police station on to the streets of Bunnyburrow, having just finished sharing their progress with Sheriff Cotton.

Unlike previous times when they came out with a renewed sense of vigor, this time the two of them were noticeably disappointed, trading looks between each other before beginning to make their way home.

"So, what the heck do we do now? The officers were about as much help as dry rot is in keeping a house standing, so essentially we're back to square one." said Nick, gesturing angrily with his paws in no particular direction.

"Well, we're just going to have to rely on our own work." said Judy. "I still kind of wish that they could have actually given us something that could help with the case, but I suppose not everything's going to go right."

"Yeah, you're right." said Nick, sighing heavily. "Man, to think I'd be spending my first actual vacation running around town on what feels like a wild goose chase."

"At least we can actually focus on the case now that the business with the Fluffers is over with."

"True."

"Hey, I say tomorrow we head back to that run-down house we lost that badger behind."

" _You_ lost that badger behind, Carrots. I was busy trying to catch up to you, so I don't think it's fair for you to include me in the blame game."

This correction earned Nick a glare from the bunny, but that was about all of the reaction he got as Judy remained silent, choosing instead to focus on the path in front of her.

It wasn't much longer before they came up to the Hopps farm and made their way up the porch to the front door, only for their ears to be greeted with the sound of chaos.

"That doesn't sound good." commented Nick as he stood on his toes to get a good look through the screen door while also keeping his distance.

"Yeah. We did get here before dinner, right?"

Judy clearly remembered making a point to check her phone just after they reached the outskirts of town to make sure they weren't late for dinner, but she was so unsure of what to make of the noise that was coming from inside the house, she really felt the need to ask just to be absolutely positive.

There was a small rustling as Nick dug through his pocket and pulled out his phone, turning the screen on as he scanned the lock screen and read the time.

"Yeah, with about twenty minutes to spare."

"Well, I guess we should go see what's up."

Judy clearly looked like she didn't want to go inside, the rabbit mentally trying to convince herself that it was just dinner conversations more than anything, but after making that last comment, she steeled her nerves before heading inside, Nick following close behind despite the fox's deep reservations.

* * *

A few hours later, Nick and Judy were in their shared room, both of them collapsed on the bed side-by-side as they were unable to move much due to how sore they currently were.

"You know, I thought you were as energetic as they come when I met you, but now that I've spent time with your younger brothers and sisters, they are much worse." commented Nick, moving his head to face Judy and quickly regretting it when a wave of pain went through his neck.

"Well, you do kind of have to get used to them." said Judy, sounding surprisingly well-spirited despite wanting nothing more than to lie down and never get up. "I'll admit I did have some issues taking care of the kids when I was old enough to do so, but I kept at it, and now it's second nature."

"Must've been your never-give-up attitude, huh?"

"Yeah, I suppose that was part of it."

The two of them soon fell silent, both of them staring at the ceiling as they both wanted to just go to bed, but neither of them wanted to move from where they were lying.

"So, uh…unless you want to share the bed, one of us is going to have to go in the sleeping bag." said Nick, finally breaking the awkward silence.

Judy briefly looked down towards the floor where she remembered leaving the sleeping bag. As much as she wanted to just tell Nick to take it (considering the fact that she was extremely comfortable on the bed), her manners when it came to having guests over won out, and she reluctantly made the decision to take the sleeping bag.

The only problem, however, was getting down there. While the bed frame was relatively low to the ground, it was still high enough that Judy couldn't just simply climb down without some effort, not to mention the fact that the two of them had barely managed to make it down to their room thanks to the horror that was taking care of over a hundred rambunctious kits.

So, without any other options, Judy turned towards her partner, adopting the sweetest tone she could muster as she began speaking.

"Hey, Nick?"

"Yeah?" said Nick, groaning a bit from the effort of moving.

"Can you do me a huge favor and help me get down from the bed, please?"

From what she could see of Nick's expression, it clearly looked like the fox was puzzled by Judy's insistence on relying on him, but then he soon remembered that the state that the two of them were in must have had something to do with it.

After mentally noting the fact that he was going to feel this in the morning, Nick grunted as he pulled himself off of the bed, slowly rolling himself over enough times until he was sitting right next to Judy.

With that step done, Nick pushed against the mattress, somehow managing to get his upper body up off of the bed despite being on extremely shaky arms.

Leaning over, Nick offered a paw to Judy, which she gladly took, before pulling her up to a sitting position.

Reaching down, Nick threaded his other arm under Judy's legs, intending to pick her up bridal style and setting her down on the floor so she could make her way over to the sleeping bag.

Unfortunately, his strength quickly gave out of him, as his grip slipped on Judy's upper half, and the bunny was sent sprawling over the edge of the bed despite Nick's attempts to grab her again.

"Oh, shoot!"

After hearing the telltale thunk of Judy's body hitting the floor, Nick immediately winced before looking over the side of the bed, his concern for Judy's well-being clearly showing.

"Are you alright down there, Carrots?" he asked.

The sight over the edge of the bed was something to behold, as Judy was face first in the carpet, fluffy butt in the air as she simply lied there.

"Owww…" was the only noise that came from below after the impact.

"Sorry, Judy. I didn't mean to drop you like that." he said, awkwardly chuckling as he was unsure of how to react to the situation he was in.

After another minute has passed, Judy finally stirred, slowly managing to roll herself over so that she could meet eyes with Nick.

While she was a bit annoyed with Nick dropping her like that, she could understand why the events of the past couple minutes turned out that way. Besides, it was only around a foot or so drop, so it wasn't like she actually hurt anything.

"Apology accepted, Nick. Don't do it again."

Nick's expression immediately dropped, worried that he'd somehow ticked Judy off, but his concerns ended up unfounded when Judy smirked.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Come on, you knucklehead, let's get to bed. I think we've got a long day ahead of us."

Nick could easily see Judy's point when it came to the long day ahead for them tomorrow, but he ignored that bad feeling he had in favor of smiling at the bunny below him, quickly showing his appreciation for the good joke before crawling back into bed, not even bothering to get under the covers as he made himself comfortable.

As for Judy, she somehow managed to make her way over to where she had the sleeping bag rolled up (to prevent any chance of her or someone else tripping on it), unrolling it and slipping inside, not even bothering to change out of her day clothes as she quickly fell asleep.

* * *

The next day soon came, and Nick made his way out of the bed, taking it slow so as to avoid straining something after the night he had last night.

Thankfully, though, he managed to hop down from the bed with no pain, and in an attempt to make sure he was alright, he did a few stretching exercises, once again feeling like a new fox.

"Well, I guess a good night's sleep really did the trick." he said to himself before looking down towards the floor where Judy was sleeping so that he could wake her up.

Said rabbit was already gone, though, if the rolled up sleeping bag was any indication.

"Huh…wonder where she went."

Walking over to the bathroom door, Nick listened intently for any sign of Judy's presence inside said room, but the lack of noise coming from inside meant that the most likely place she was located was upstairs, most likely having breakfast.

Nick briefly considered just going up and joining her so that they would be able to eat together, but after taking a step towards the exit, he froze, sniffing his armpit as he realized that he really did not smell so great, especially after the day he had yesterday.

Sighing, Nick turned around and opened the bathroom door, deciding that he was going to take a quick shower before officially starting the day.

Stepping inside, Nick turned the shower on to let it heat up before stripping down to his skivvies, mentally thanking both Hopps parents that him and Judy managed to get a bathroom with an actual lock on it. He couldn't imagine one of Judy's siblings (or heck, even Judy herself) walking in on him completely naked.

Although, as he thought about it, he realized that there would be a lot of screaming and a lot of awkward moments in the future, so he made sure that the door was securely locked before stepping into the shower.

Time passed as Nick stood under the water, letting it wash away all of the stink of yesterday. Frankly, even though he was pretty good at keeping clean since he'd first arrived, with all of the running around town he'd been doing for the case, he was surprised he didn't smell worse.

Still, as he looked down at his slim and trim body, he could also see the (bunny-shaped) bright side of all the busy work he'd had to do over the course of the week.

Sighing, Nick grabbed the shampoo bottle, squeezing some of the formula into his paw as he began going through the motions of cleaning himself up.

The rest of his time spent in the shower was done in a haze, partially because he'd only just woken up, and partially because his mind began to wander, mostly thinking about what they'd learned so far during the case.

Honestly, he couldn't help but worry a bit knowing what they were up against. Sure, neither him nor Judy were complete amateurs when it came to police work but going up against an entire gang like they're about to be doing felt like suicide to him, especially since he wasn't entirely comfortable with the amount of backup they had in terms of the Bunnyburrow branch of the ZPD.

As he washed himself off and reached down to shut the water off, Nick mentally debated whether to bring this fact up when he met up with Judy upstairs, eventually deciding that it was more than worth it, especially with the lack of time they had left.

Unfortunately, with the lack of grooming tools built for foxes in the bathroom, Nick's options were limited when it came to getting himself straightened up for the day.

Thankfully, though, there was a fur dryer and a decent-sized brush located over by the sink, which Nick could see had some remnants of his tail fur stuck in from the last times he's had to use it.

Picking the dryer up, Nick quickly went to work, drying himself off and brushing his tail, somehow managing to work out quite a few tangles in his tail despite not enjoying the feeling of his tail fur being pulled every which way by the undersized brush.

With his midsection fully wrapped in a towel, Nick stepped back out into the bedroom, digging around in his suitcase before picking out a red T-shirt with jagged blue stripes on it. Most people have said that he looked like someone desperate to relive the 90s while wearing that shirt, but he'd always had a soft spot for it, and what better time to bust it out than while on vacation?

After slipping on a pair of blue jeans in an attempt to look more casual than he normally did, Nick finally made his way down the hallway, stepping out of the elevator and into the main family room to find Judy sitting on one of the couches, playing with one of her younger sisters.

"Well, I see you're managing just fine without me." he said playfully. "I'd have figured you would have been on your way to the sheriff by now."

Having been absorbed in her interactions with her sister, Judy didn't notice Nick arriving until now. As she turned around to retort, she was caught off guard as she noticed her partner's getup.

"Really, Nick? You look less like you're ready to raid a gang hideout and more like you're going to go skating with some of your rad friends."

"Oh, come now. I've heard way worse comparisons than that. I've seen you do way better, Fluff."

Judy briefly considered trying to go with Nick's goading and come up with a better insult, but she quickly thought better, realizing that they didn't have that kind of time to do so.

"There's cereal in the cupboard by the second oven. I'll meet you outside after I get some fresh air."

Nick nodded in understanding before heading into the kitchen. Despite both of the Hopps' ovens looking exactly the same, he was somehow able to find the right cupboard with little issue.

After a quick cursory glance at each of the cereal boxes on offer, Nick grabbed one that caught his eye (regretfully choosing to skip the box of Lucky Chomps next to it), pouring a good amount into a nearby bowl and chowing down.

It didn't take long before the bowl was empty, and Nick quickly washed it out before setting it in the sink, walking quickly through the dining room and living room before heading outside to find Judy sitting on a porch swing nearby.

"There you are. Ready to go?" she asked, hopping off of the swing with grace.

"Sure."

Nick had every intention of asking Judy about his issues with the case as soon as he got the chance, but there were some lingering worries about speaking about this kind of subject while any of the other Hopps family were within earshot, so he decided it would probably be best to save it for when they had some privacy.

And so, the two of them once again made their way back into town, eager to get moving on the case with the limited amount of time they had left.

* * *

 **Ugh, sorry about the really long wait. You can blame burnout for that, especially with how busy I was over the last couple months. Not to worry, though. I finally managed to finish college, so I've got some more free time to get things back up to speed.**

 **Also, I was debating how much of the shower scene to write without making it sound wrong. Hopefully it didn't get too dirty. I'm kind of trying to avoid having to up the rating.**

 **Also also, I'm hoping I didn't screw up the characterizations. It's been quite a while since I've read anything Zootopia-related (especially since the archive's been flooded with WildeHopps).**


	19. Chapter 19

The trip into town was done mostly in silence, as Judy was concerned with getting the investigation started up once more while Nick, meanwhile, was mentally debating the right time to bring up his apprehension about what they were planning to do next.

He was so nervous about what she would think, that it took until when they were just about to head into the station when Nick worked up the courage to speak up.

"Hey Carrots, you mind if we can speak privately for a second?"

Judy looked back down at the bottom of the steps where Nick was currently standing, a puzzled look on her face.

"Okay…sure. Let's step off to the side."

Once Judy made her way down the steps, Nick gestured with his paws, letting her take the lead as they walked over to the side of the building where they would be able to hopefully get some privacy.

Once the two of them were satisfied that no one was watching, Judy looked towards her partner, a questioning look on her face as she noticed how nervous he looked.

"So…what's up?"

Nick didn't answer immediately, as he was still figuring out how to word what he was feeling. Thankfully, though, before Judy could get annoyed with how much time they were wasting, he finally spoke up.

"Listen, I'm just going to go out and say it. Please don't be mad."

Judy was admittedly a little confused, but she remained silent, allowing Nick to continue speaking after a heavy sigh from the fox.

"I think we should call Bogo."

Nick quickly shut his eyes, expecting a forceful denial from the feisty bunny, but after a few seconds without a word, he slowly opened them back up to find her once again with a puzzled look.

"Are you sure we should? I mean, we did have this whole discussion with the sheriff about how we're not supposed to be working on this case while we're on vacation."

"Yeah, I know that we have that to deal with, but I really think we should. I mean, we're dealing with a gang that's who knows how big, and there's a good chance that most of them are packing. This is way too dangerous for just the two of us. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that Bellwether and her goons were running guns as well."

Judy's mouth quickly shut with a snap, having been beaten to the punch with her next argument. Finding nothing was coming to mind in terms of another, Judy fell silent, considering Nick's words.

"Carrots, I know how you are sometimes, but I'm trying to look out for both of our tails. Facing those guys alone is honestly suicidal."

"Listen, Nick, I need to think about this."

"Come on, Carrots. This shouldn't be difficult." said Nick exasperatedly.

"I know, Nick. But…why can't we just get the guys inside to help?"

Nick sighed once more.

"Look, I don't want to sound speciesist, but I don't think those guys are capable of taking on a gang this size. This feels like a SWAT mission more than anything."

Judy admittedly could see Nick's point, but her worries about Bogo, combined with her wanting to stick up for her fellow rabbits prevented her from being completely convinced.

"Look, I'll think about it. Besides, we really should be getting inside. We don't want to keep Cotton waiting."

Nick didn't look very happy about not being able to convince her, but she was technically right. They were running a bit late for their meeting with Cotton, so they needed to get inside.

Reluctantly, Nick made his way inside with Judy taking up the rear, weaving his way through the mess of desks before knocking on the sheriff's door.

"Come in!" said the voice from inside.

Nick did as he was told, pushing the door open and taking a seat in front of Cotton's desk, a file in the sheriff's paws as he watched the two officers take their seats.

"Good to see you two here. Now, let's get to business."

Cotton closed the file, placing it on his desk before folding his fingers together as he looked down at Nick and Judy.

"So, about this badger you were chasing. I've put an APB out on him like you asked after describing him during our last meeting. What I wanted to know was whether you've managed to figure out how he managed to give you the slip."

"Well, we don't know for sure yet. We were going to head over to that house and look around once we're finished." said Judy.

"I'm aware of that. I want to hear your theories."

Judy was admittedly a little taken aback by the sudden direction, but as she recollected her thoughts, she remembered that Cotton was an unconventional cop, so she left it aside as she shared her thoughts.

"Well, this sounds kind of crazy, but I've been thinking, and I believe that there might be some sort of secret door located somewhere behind the abandoned house with a tunnel that leads to wherever their base is."

"You're right, that does sound crazy. Mind explaining how you came up with that frankly crackpot theory?"

Nick was a little miffed that Cotton dismissed that theory so quickly, but he kept his cool as he worked on defending his partner.

"Sir, I may not have been with her the entire time, but I could tell when I caught up with her that there were no holes in the ground or any sign of where that badger disappeared to."

Cotton obviously didn't look too convinced, but he didn't put up another argument. Instead, he simply gestured towards the door with a paw.

"Go see what you can find. I'm willing to trust your judgement, but I need to see some actual proof before I actually believe what you're saying."

Judy was broken out of her dejected spell by Cotton's open mind, the confidence returning to her expression as she stood up in her chair.

"Don't you worry, Sheriff. We'll make sure to find out what's going on."

"You do that. Now, please leave me be. I've got work to do."

Cotton waved the two of them off with a paw, and Judy and Nick stepped off their seats and out the door, weaving their way through the station once more before heading outside into town.

* * *

The journey over to the abandoned house went without incident, mostly because Nick and Judy spent most of the trip engaging in small talk. Plus, not running into anyone in town helped them get there much quicker.

Once they arrived, the two of them stepped behind the house and stood near the back wall as they looked over the decently-sized backyard.

"Well…are you ready to go?" asked Judy, looking up towards her taller partner with a determined look on her face.

"Ready as I'll ever be." said Nick.

Nick honestly wasn't terribly excited about having to crawl through what felt like a crazy amount of grass, but if it meant getting closer to shutting this ring down, he would be willing to suffer for his work.

"Alright, cool. I'll start on the left side and you head to the right. We'll work inwards and then we'll meet in the middle. How does that sound?"

"Sounds good."

Without waiting for an answer, Nick made his way over to the right side of the lawn. After a slight pause, he kneeled, mentally noting the fact that he's going to have to put his pants in the wash the first chance he got.

Once he was fully on all fours, Nick resisted the urge to start sniffing, instead searching through the grass with his paws as he slowly made his way up and down the backyard.

As for Judy, she was doing the same thing on the other side, but at a much quicker pace then her counterpart.

This was only because she had a larger area to cover, and while she did believe that it was unlikely for the badger to have disappeared anywhere outside of said backyard, she did want to go over the entire area just to cover her bases.

At first, neither of them seemed to be making any progress, as they both were only crawling across solid ground.

However, just as they were about to meet in the middle as planned, with the two of them clearly looking at each other, Judy was surprised to find Nick suddenly fall through the ground, the fox's eyes widening as he dropped below.

"Nick!" shouted Judy.

Quickly getting to her feet, she ran over to where Nick fell, only to be surprised when she found an actual trap door, with dirt dropping down into a somewhat deep hole dug into the ground.

"Whoa! I didn't think that there would actually be a secret door here." she said as she stared into the hole.

"I'm fine, by the way!" shouted Nick, sounding surprisingly quiet from where he was.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Nick. How far down are you?" she asked apologetically.

"Looks pretty deep."

"Can you see what's down there?"

There was a bit of silence where Judy was assuming that Nick was using his night vision to look around, before his voice came back up from below.

"Not a whole lot. I see a ladder against the wall."

Judy looked down and noticed the top of said ladder, which she assumed must have been used by the badger to get down into said hole.

"Anything else?"

"Nothing really." came Nick's voice. "Just a very long tunnel. I can't see where it ends."

"I'm coming down. Hang on."

Judy was about ready to make her way down the ladder, placing a foot on the second rung, but before she could make another step, she was stopped when Nick shouted out from the bottom.

"Whoa, hold on! Let's talk about this for a second! I'm coming back up."

Judy briefly considered ignoring Nick's words and continuing to climb down, but then she realized that it would just lead to more confusion as they would end up running into each other, so reluctantly she climbed back on to solid ground, waiting a few minutes nearby before Nick finally climbed out.

As Nick brushed himself off, Judy managed to get a good look at him, and while he did look largely unhurt, she did notice a few scratches and a scuffed elbow, most likely coming from the fall. Nick was also dirty as well, with some patches stuck in his fur and staining his shirt.

"Are you sure you're alright, Nick?"

"Oh yeah, I'm alright. Grinded my elbow against the wall, but luckily I landed on my side, so it wasn't all bad."

"That still doesn't sound very good."

"Okay, so I'm kind of sore right now, but let's not worry about that. We really need to think about what we're going to do next."

"Well, shouldn't we at least check out where that tunnel actually leads?"

"Don't worry, we're going to. I just want to be prepared with a plan once we get there. Just imagine if they catch us there."

"Okay, I get it!" said Judy, holding her paws out in front of her to stop Nick before he could get going. "Do you have anything in mind?"

"Easy." said Nick confidently. "Just stay out of sight and take pictures. Then we'll show Cotton, and if you're okay with it, we'll bring in SWAT to take them down."

Judy was perfectly okay with that plan, even if she was still worried about the SWAT part. However, as she reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, she realized that it wasn't in either of her pockets.

Panicking a bit, she searched her other pockets, thinking she might have absent-mindedly put it somewhere else, but after a few more seconds of frantic searching, she mentally kicked herself when she realized exactly what she did with it.

"Oh, shoot! My phone's at home. I need to go grab it."

"Wait, how could you forget your phone? You're usually pretty good at remembering to bring it with you."

"Turns out I forgot to charge it, and it was almost dead by the time I picked it up this morning. It should be charged enough for us to use it by the time we get back to the house."

"Or…we could just use my phone."

Judy was about ready to take a step back towards town when Nick spoke up, stopping her in her tracks.

"You remembered your phone?" she asked, turning her head back towards Nick.

"Yeah, of course. I've already wasted enough of my money having to replace my last one, so I really don't want to have to get a third. Besides, this thing kicks butt."

Nick pulled out his phone, turning it around and around in his paw for a few moments before handing it over to Judy.

"Wait, you're giving it to me after all that?"

"Well, yeah." said Nick, shrugging. "I trust you with it, and I have my night vision, so let's go and get this done."

Nick's confident tone somehow managed to help convince Judy that this was the right thing to do, so after taking the phone away from him, she turned the screen on, only to be stopped when a password screen popped up.

"Uh, the phone's locked."

Nick's eyes widened for a moment in surprise, before he playfully slapped himself on the side of the head, cursing his moment of stupidity.

"Well, that kind of ruined the moment."

After handing the phone back to Nick, Judy watched as Nick punched in the password before handing it back to her.

"The password's A113 if it locks again. The camera and flashlight are on the first page of the apps."

"Wait, how does your password have a letter in it?"

"I had to pay extra, but it makes my phone much more secure. Now, have you found them yet?"

Judy pulled up the apps and found the two apps just where Nick said they were. After being confident enough that she would know where they were when they were in the thick of things, she stuck his phone in her pocket before heading towards the trap door.

"Ready to go?" she asked, taking the first step on to the ladder.

"Sure, let's go."

With a smile on his face, Nick walked over to the door, and as soon as Judy was far enough down, he started making his way down the ladder himself.

When he was far enough down, Nick looked back up at the hole above him, debating whether he should close the door behind him. As much as he was worried about how dark it was going to get once they were shut (even with his night vision, it was still very dark), but he really didn't want to take any chances when it comes to someone in town walking into the backyard and discovering or even falling into the hole.

So, after some debate, Nick reached out and grabbed each side of the door, shutting them tight before grabbing one of the rungs and holding them tight as he continued making his way down into the hole.

Once his feet met solid ground, there was a bit of confusion as he wondered where Judy had went, but after a bit of time had passed, a beam of light suddenly appeared in the darkness, and Nick was forced to squint due to the sudden change in brightness.

Through the sudden change, Nick was able to see Judy in the darkness, and after a nod towards the tunnel, she began making her way in, ready to see what was at the end.

As for Nick, after a heavy sigh, he began making his way in as well, following the beam of light as he hoped that what they were going to see at the end wasn't going to end up getting them killed.

* * *

 **I decided to stick an Easter Egg in this chapter just for fun. Feel free to point it out if you wish, but I'm not going to force you if you don't want to.**


	20. Chapter 20

The darkness in the tunnel was almost all-encompassing as Nick and Judy continued to make their way along, the only real light coming from the flashlight feature on Nick's phone that was in Judy's possession.

"Man, the least they could do is string some lights along. I can barely see." said Nick quietly, attempting to lighten the mood.

Unfortunately, the only real reaction he got from his counterpart was a shush. While Nick understood her reasoning behind doing so, he was admittedly a little disappointed that she didn't even bother playing along.

Time passed as they kept going down the seemingly never-ending tunnel, both of them remaining silent although Nick was forced to bite back a few choice curses after stepping on a pointy rock and nearly banging his head on the ceiling.

"The hell?" he said to himself, reaching out with a paw and realizing that the tunnel was becoming smaller.

Kneeling down, Nick took a look inside where the smaller part of the tunnel began, placing his paw up against the ceiling to test how much room he had to move.

Luckily, it was big enough that he didn't have to start crawling, but he still had to kneel quite a bit before his head would fit into the gap.

"Here goes nothing."

Pressing his torso up against his legs, Nick began slowly crouch-walking his way into the rest of the tunnel, managing to catch up with Judy not too long after despite the rabbit having went ahead while he waffled about with the new tunnel size.

Once again in silence, Judy and Nick continued on their way down the tunnel. While Judy had no real issue crouch-walking, Nick's legs were becoming increasingly sore due to the workout they were being put through.

Thankfully, though, just as it was about to get to the point where Nick felt like his legs were going to cramp up, the tunnel suddenly widened again into what appeared to be a large warehouse.

Judy was almost completely caught off guard by how quickly the tunnel ended, so she almost ended up falling out of the hole and into a place where she definitely didn't want to be caught in.

Luckily, Nick was there to catch her, wrapping his arm around her waist before pulling her back in to the hole.

"Thanks." said Judy quickly.

"Don't mention it. Now, how do you want to do this?" asked Nick, his voice quiet enough so that the noise going on down below sufficiently drowned out their conversation from any eavesdroppers.

Judy didn't answer immediately, instead looking around the area as she formulated their next course of action.

Down below them was a ladder, which they could easily use to climb down from the hole and get back on to solid ground. However, with how close they were to the action, Judy believed it was too risky to try, especially since the warehouse was most likely guarded from multiple angles.

Upwards was a different story, though, as once she looked upwards, she spotted a catwalk hanging above.

"Carrots, what are you doing?" asked Nick as Judy took a few steps back into the tunnel.

Nick ended up getting his answer in an unexpected way, as Judy took a running start before bouncing off of the edge of the tunnel towards, barely catching the edge of the catwalk with her fingers.

Thankfully, despite a few hair-raising seconds where Judy was struggling to pull herself up, she managed to eventually do so, kicking one of her legs on to the catwalk before sliding under the railing to safety.

Relieved that Judy wasn't going to have to be scraped off of the ground, Nick clutched at his chest for a few moments to calm his beating heart before looking back up and realizing that she was leaning over the railing head first with both paws outstretched towards him.

"Come on, Nick! Jump and I'll catch you!" she said in a loud whisper.

"Are you crazy, Fluff?" said Nick in the same tone. "I'm double your size!"

"I'll be fine! I've got my legs hooked around the railing."

Nick got up on his toes and looked up to find that Judy's legs were indeed wrapped around the railings, and while he was admittedly worried about how far they were apart, he's seen enough of her in action to know how strong those legs were, being a rabbit and all.

Slapping a paw over his face, Nick slid it up and over his ears before letting his arm fall back to his side.

"If you let me fall, Carrots, I swear I am going to haunt you for the rest of your life!" he said, pointing towards her with a finger.

"Come on, Nick! You can do it!"

Although slightly miffed that she didn't make a comment about his haunting threat, Nick chose to let it go in favor of psyching himself up for the jump.

Sighing, he began taking steps backwards, taking even more steps than Judy did considering he felt better getting a bigger running start than her.

Once he was back enough to the point where he was comfortable, Nick got down into a three-point stance, mentally counting down before shooting off, putting his ZPD training to use as he pushed himself to get as much speed as he can before he reached the end.

As the end of the tunnel came up, Nick figuratively coiled his legs up like a spring, waiting for the exact moment when his foot hit the edge.

That moment quickly came.

Springing off of his back foot, Nick flew through the air, desperately reaching out for Judy's paws as he hoped that his aim was close enough that she wouldn't miss grabbing him.

Thankfully, his aim was spot on, but as Judy got closer to him, he soon realized that she was getting further away from him.

"Oh, shoot!"

Nick was convinced that he was going to fall short, his arms wildly waving in the air as he tried to grab whatever he could manage, his eyes tightly shut as he waited for the inevitable.

Just as Nick was beginning to think that he was going to have to follow through on haunting Judy, his momentum soon came to a stop as he hung in the air.

Puzzled, Nick slowly opened his eyes and looked up to find that Judy somehow had grabbed him by the shirt collar, the fox's midriff exposed as he swung back and forth below the catwalk.

"Holy crap, Judy! I thought I was going to die for a second there! My life flashed before my eyes!" he said, his tone breathless as he spoke in his loud whisper.

"Thank me later and grab my paws! I can't hold on for much longer!"

Judy was indeed struggling to get a good grip on Nick's shirt, and Nick could even feel himself slipping a bit out of the garment as his arms were slightly pinned in the air by how far above his head his shirt was.

After a few seconds of effort, Nick managed to twist his body around and grab Judy's left arm with his paw, enabling her to let go of his shirt with her corresponding paw and grab his arm.

Nick soon did the same with his other paw, and after a few more seconds of struggling, Judy somehow managed to pull Nick up far enough that he was able to grab the end of the catwalk and pull himself up.

Once the two of them had finally made it up, they both collapsed on the metal grating, catching their breath.

"Oh god, I feel like I've just aged ten years. That was probably the dumbest idea I've ever heard." said Nick.

"Well, we made it up, didn't we?" said Judy, letting the remark pass.

"Yeah, after nearly pancaking on the ground below. How are we going to get down, anyway?"

Nick's question was unfortunately ignored, as Judy's attention was grabbed by what was going down below them.

Crawling over to the other end of the catwalk, Judy looked down at ground level, her counterpart rolling his eyes before joining her nearby.

Nick's attitude quickly changed, though, when he saw what Judy saw.

"Whoa…"

There was a small group of what Nick assumed were some of the gang members crowded around a large table carrying a map, but what really caught his eye was the boxes and boxes of guns and other weapons.

"What is with these guys? That looks like enough guns to arm an entire army!"

Nick ended up not even getting an answer to his comment, because Judy was busy pulling Nick's phone out of her pocket, quickly typing in the password before pulling up the camera and pointing it towards the meeting down below.

Nick winced, though, when his ears caught the click noise the camera made when it took a picture.

Luckily, the gang members were too busy speaking to each other to notice, but Nick didn't want to take the risk, so before Judy could get too into her photos, Nick turned his head towards her, some slight panic on his face as he spoke.

"Carrots, mute the phone!"

Pausing just before hitting the button once more, Judy looked up at the top of the screen and noticed the lack of a picture to signify the phone being on mute.

Nearly panicking herself, Judy almost ended up dropping the phone before catching herself, swiping the options menu down before hitting the volume button twice to finally mute the phone.

"Christ, Carrots, you almost gave me a heart attack."

"Well, how was I supposed to know your phone's sound was on?"

"…Point taken. Now, get those pictures taken so we can get out of here before they're done down there."

Judy nodded before returning her focus to the phone, the device now mercifully silent as she took picture after picture of the warehouse full of guns, as well as the gang members.

When she went to take a picture of the map, though, that was when things got difficult.

Even though they both were well above the meeting, they were far enough away from it that there was an entire line of mammals blocking her from getting a good shot of the map.

Silently groaning in protest, Judy stood up on the catwalk, getting up on her toes and even raising the camera as high above her head as she could manage in the hopes of getting a full picture of the map, but nothing seemed to work. The pictures were either too blurry, or the gang members were blocking her view.

Exasperated, Judy turned towards Nick, holding out her free paw.

"Let me get on your shoulders. I can't get high enough to get a good picture of the map."

Nick's eyes widened a bit, no doubt surprised by what Judy was asking.

"You sure that's wise? We're not exactly in the dark here."

"I'll be quick. I just need one good picture and then we can leave."

Nick wasn't entirely convinced, but he shrugged before getting into a kneeling position.

"Don't say I didn't warn you. Now, hop up."

Judy did so, using her free paw to grab Nick's as the fox grabbed her other wrist in the absence of another paw to grab (thanks to it holding his phone).

Once both of Judy's feet were firmly planted on Nick's shoulders, Nick slowly stood up, his already tired legs burning from the effort.

Thankfully, though, he was able to fully stand up and make his way to the side of the catwalk after a few near stumbles.

Releasing the paws around her limbs, Nick waited anxiously, clutching her feet against his shoulders as she moved the phone around to get the exact right angle she needed.

After a few more agonizing seconds, Judy finally got the entire map in the frame, and after taking a few seconds to steady herself, she finally hit the button and took the picture.

"Yes, I've got it!" she said quietly, pumping her fist for emphasis.

"Good, now let's get the heck out of here and get these pictures to Cotton."

Nick picked Judy up off of his shoulders before setting her back down on the catwalk.

However, what they failed to immediately catch was that when Judy was being lowered down to the grating below, one of the nearby lights ended up glinting off of the camera lens on Nick's phone.

While it was only for what felt like a split second, it was just enough that one of the gang members that was on the side of the table facing them caught the light out of the corner of his eye.

The gang member, who upon closer inspection turned out to be the exact badger that Nick and Judy were chasing through Bunnyburrow not too long ago looked up, his muzzle twisting in fury as he realized just who was watching them.

"It's the cops!" shouted the badger, pointing up towards the catwalk where Judy and Nick were just about to head towards the end where they could get down.

Both Nick and Judy froze, the former silently swearing as they realized that their cover was blown.

All of the other mammals turned around towards where the badger was pointing, everyone very much surprised to see the fox and bunny spying on them.

"Grab them! Now!" said the badger.

"Run!"

Judy barely had time to shout that before the two of them were off, pushing through their fatigue as they rushed down towards the end of the catwalk.

Luckily, they ended up choosing the right side, as it led to a stairway down to the floor.

However, they were also quite high up as well, and in the time that they took to make their way downstairs, a few of the gang members managed to block their way just as they reached the final set.

"Come quietly, little bunny, and maybe we won't have to break your leg." said one of the gang members, a boar with an intimidating air around him.

Thankfully, Judy wasn't one to be intimidated. Judy took a step forwards, her posture making it look like she was going to start fighting the boar.

However, fighting him wasn't her intention, and when she noticed the flinch in his body movements, Judy went into action, grabbing Nick by the wrist and hopping over the railing.

Caught off guard, the gang members looked confused for a second before rushing around the stairway to give chase.

Luckily, though, these precious few seconds were enough to give Nick and Judy the chance to get to the ladder without anyone interfering.

"You climb first!" said Judy, almost shoving Nick towards the ladder as the gang members got closer.

Nick thankfully got the picture, grabbing the nearest rung and making his way up the ladder as quick as he could.

Meanwhile, Judy grabbed the ladder herself once she had enough room to do so, but just as she made it to the halfway point of the ladder, she felt a paw being wrapped around her foot.

Looking down, she noticed that one of the gang members, specifically the boar, had grabbed her.

Annoyed, Judy kicked the boar in the face as hard as she could manage with her free foot, earning a satisfying crack as the boar reared back in pain, his paws going up to his snout.

With both of her feet free, Judy returned them to the ladder, pouring on the speed as she climbed quickly up the ladder and successfully reached the hole, finding Nick a few feet down the tunnel anxiously waiting for her to catch up.

Once she did so, the two of them crawled hurriedly through the small part of the tunnel before getting back on their feet once there was enough room to do so.

Luckily, though, as she looked back once they reached the ladder, Judy noticed that there was no one right behind them. In fact, while she could hear footsteps coming down the tunnel, they were far enough away that she believed that there must have been some delay in getting one of the gang members in to the tunnel, no doubt because the boar probably couldn't fit in the small section.

Mentally thanking whoever was watching over them, Judy turned her head back to the ladder and continued climbing, both her and Nick eventually reaching the inconspicuous trapdoor and back into the backyard.

Once they were on solid ground, the two of them didn't stop until they reached the police station in town, both of them eager to share their evidence with Sheriff Cotton.

 **Ugh, I apologize for the insane wait. Honestly, no offense to everyone else, but the extreme abundance of Nick/Judy stories really burned me out on Zootopia in general. It's honestly not all that fun trying to look through the archives and finding nothing but stories about Judy and Nick fall in love and all that.**

 **Once again, I don't mean any offense (I'm not telling anyone what to do with their ideas). I will finish this story, but this will probably be the last one I do for a while, at least until the sequel comes out and reignites my interest.**

 **Anyway, I hope that you guys understand.**


	21. Chapter 21

As soon as Judy and Nick reached the police station, they both peeled off to the right side of the front door, pressing their backs up against the wall as they breathed heavily from the heavy amount of exercise they were getting today.

Neither of them even moved from their spots for at least a few minutes, as despite their head start, they were set upon by a couple of gang members who were above ground. Thankfully, they did manage to give them the slip, but they didn't want to take any chances of them getting seen, even if it was in a safe place like the police station.

Eventually, Nick decided to take a risk. Leaning over, Nick slowly crept his way into view of a nearby window, trying his best to keep as much of his body out of view while at the same time enabling himself to see outside.

Luckily, the fact that this was a rural station helped, as the windows were equipped with Venetian blinds, and they were currently closed thanks to it being the time of day when the sun was peeking its way inside the windows.

Lifting up a slat with a finger, Nick peeked through the opening with one of his eyes, scanning the town in front of him for any sign of the gang members chasing them.

At first, it seemed like they were safe, as the only mammals they could see were normal townsfolk. He could even see Gideon walking by, the burned paw in his pocket as the other adjusted his shirt, no doubt to cover the bandage after it slipped into view.

Nick lightly shook his head, thinking that he might have to have a talk with him about looking past his mistakes.

"Anyone of them out there?" asked Judy, still pressed against the wall on the other side of the window.

"No, but I just saw Gid walking by. I guess he must have been on a lunch break or something."

Just as they were beginning to think that they were safe, though, Nick looked back through the slat and immediately spotted one of the gang members, a spotted leopard in a black hoodie and slacks run into view, looking around the area as a pistol peeked through the waistband of his pants.

Nearly swearing, Nick jumped back into his position against the wall, the slat falling back into place as if it was never tampered with by the fox.

As for Judy, she'd also pressed herself up against the wall after seeing the way Nick acted, but she wanted to be absolutely sure before she came up with a plan of action on what to do next.

"Are they out there?" she asked, once again in a loud whisper.

"Just one of them, but he looks angry. Stay away from the window."

Judy had no intentions of not following Nick's warning, keeping her long ears erect above her so they didn't end up falling past the window.

The two of them remained there for the next few minutes, barely moving as they waited for the right moment to check on the location of their pursuers, so much so that they were starting to get looks from the officers working in the station.

Eventually, though, the time came when they felt that they could risk a look outside. This time, Judy took a turn, lifting the lowest slat she could comfortably reach, peeking through the opening as she scanned outside.

Thankfully, despite both of the gang members being there, Judy had looked outside just as the two of them gave on the search, a visible shrug coming from the leopard before they walked out of view.

Although concerned that they could still be in the town looking for them, Judy decided to take it as a sign that they would be safe for the moment.

After signaling to Nick with a nod that the coast was clear, the two of them stood up, about to make their way to Cotton's office when they noticed the increased number of stares they were getting.

"Oh! Uh…hi." said Judy, awkwardly waving.

"Just passing through." said Nick, a paw against Judy's back as he led her quickly through the desks before things got more embarrassing. "Carry on."

Despite some minor protesting from Judy for being pushed around, Nick successfully lead them through the worst of the stares, finding a group of officers that were still working diligently just as they reached Cotton's office, the door once again slightly ajar.

"Welcome back." said Cotton after having noticed the two of them enter. "I'm assuming judging by you two being here that you have something to share."

As Cotton greeted them, Nick took his usual seat on the left side of the room.

As for Judy, before sitting down herself, she pulled Nick's phone out of her pocket, placing it on Cotton's desk before taking her seat.

"What's this?" asked Cotton, puzzled.

"Our evidence." said Judy. "We found the gang's hideout at the end of a tunnel, which just so happened to be at hiding under a trap door in the ground."

Cotton's curiosity couldn't help but be piqued after hearing that Judy's supposedly crazy theory turned out to be true, but after reaching over and picking up Nick's phone, he paused when he turned the screen on and noticed the input for the password.

"Uh, you're going to have to help me here. I'm not exactly the best with these newfangled smartphones."

"Oh, cheese and crackers!" said Judy. "Sorry, Sheriff."

She was about to hop off of the seat to help him, but Nick ended up beating her to the punch, stepping behind Cotton's desk as he punched the password in and opened the camera application.

"Swipe your finger to the left to change photos." he said as he handed the phone back to Cotton and sat back down.

After a quick thank you from Cotton, the room fell silent as Nick and Judy watched him flip through the pictures, his face becoming more and more worried as he went deeper into the album.

As soon as Cotton reached the last picture and placed the phone back on his desk, his face went immediately into his paws, his elbows resting against the desk as he reflected on what he saw.

Judy, having noticed how far Cotton's ears were drooping over his face, couldn't help but be concerned with what the sheriff was thinking.

"Sir, are you alright?" she asked.

Out of nowhere, Cotton suddenly straightened back up with a pensive expression on his face, nearly giving Nick and Judy whiplash with the sudden change in his attitude.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You didn't look fine a moment ago." said Nick.

"I am, honest. It's just that this police station isn't built for an operation of this magnitude. We don't even have enough staff to handle this."

"So, what are you saying?" asked Judy.

"We're going to have to call in Precinct One. A gunrunning operation like this needs to have the SWAT team involved."

Judy clearly didn't want to get Chief Bogo involved, and she was about to argue her point against what Cotton was about to do.

However, before she could do so, she was stopped by a paw on her shoulder.

Looking over, she saw that Nick was obviously the one who'd done so, a softened expression on the fox cop's face as he regarded her with a look that said 'See what I mean?'.

"Carrots, this is exactly what I was telling you about this morning. I know you don't want to get in trouble with Bogo or anything- "

"That's not true!" protested Judy.

"Even if it's not, I really think we should go along with what Cotton's saying. The Chief's not going to be happy with us, but this is honestly our only real option."

Judy still wasn't entirely comfortable with what Nick and Cotton were asking of her, but she knew deep down that she was just asking for trouble if she tried to convince Nick to take the gang down by themselves, or with Cotton and the Bunnyburrow Precinct along as well.

So, with extreme reservations, Judy nodded, falling back against the chair as she folded her paws over her lap, her gaze on the bottom of her seat.

Nick couldn't help but be concerned with his partner, but despite wanting to comfort her, he unfortunately wasn't able to get the chance, as they were interrupted by a series of beeps as Cotton dialed a number into his phone.

Judy assumed that Cotton must have put the phone call on speaker, as both her and Nick could clearly hear the dial tone emitting from it.

"Zootopia Police Department Precinct One. Officer Clawhauser speaking." said the instantly recognizable voice on the other line.

"Benjamin! This is Edward Cotton from Precinct 15 down in Bunnyburrow. How are you doing?"

"Great! I'm doing fantastic! Anyway, what can I do for the fine folks down there today?"

"Actually, I'd like to speak to Chief Bogo if at all possible. I've got Nick and Judy with me, and we've got something important to share with him."

"Really?" asked Clawhauser, sounding as peppy as ever. "I haven't heard from those two in what feels like forever! How are your vacations going?"

"They're going alright, Ben." said Judy awkwardly, not wanting to blab their true purpose to the notoriously chatty cheetah and cause more issues.

"Good to hear. I can't wait to hear about it when you guys get back into the city."

"Looking forward to it, Benji. Now would you mind sending us to the Chief, please?" said Nick, interjecting before Clawhauser could start off on a tangent.

"Oh, of course! One second."

A tone emitted through the speaker as Clawhauser put the call on hold, but it only lasted for a few seconds before the line was picked up again.

"Cotton." said the gruff tones of Chief Bogo on the other line. "Make it quick. I'm busy."

Although slightly put off by Bogo's tone, Cotton's professionalism took over as he quickly explained his reason for calling.

"Hmm, so you're saying that there's this new gang in your town with enough guns to arm an entire state's army, and they're using them to rob other mammals?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Cotton, that sounds like the ravings of a mad mammal on drugs."

"Chief, I wouldn't be calling you right now if I didn't believe it myself. Besides, I have proof right here in front of me."

"What kind of proof?"

"Photos."

"Send them over. I want to take a look at them."

Cotton silently beckoned Nick over, handing the phone over to him.

"They're on their way. Just give me a few minutes."

Judy watched as Nick furiously typed at his phone, swiping at the screen a few times as it looked like he was piling all the pictures into one place to send to Bogo.

With one more tap, the pictures were soon sent, and Nick nodded to Cotton before taking his seat once more.

"They've just been sent. I believe they should be coming to your phone relatively soon."

"Ah, here they are."

The only thing the three of them could hear was Bogo's breathing as the buffalo scrolled through the pictures on his phone.

"Who the bloody hell took these pictures anyway?" he said absentmindedly as he continued his scrolling.

"Nicholas Wilde and Judy Hopps."

Bogo's breathing fell silent for a few moments, causing both Judy and Nick to trade looks as they wondered just how the buffalo was taking the news that they were involved.

"Of course it's those two." said Bogo, his tone making Nick believe that he must have a hoof pressed up against his temple to relieve an oncoming headache. "Why am I not surprised that those two are once again sticking their noses into something that should be none of their business?"

"That's just the way they are, I suppose." said Cotton.

"Are they in the room with you?"

"Yes, they are."

"Hopps…Wilde…are you there?" he asked.

"Yes, sir." said Judy.

"I'm here, too." said Nick.

"We are going to have some words about this once we're finished with this whole mess."

Nick and Judy traded looks once more, both of them nervous as Bogo clearly did not sound happy.

"So, are you convinced?" asked Cotton.

"I don't need to be. I've got all of the evidence I need right here."

"Great news. Now, when can we expect the SWAT team to arrive?"

Bogo paused, some typing being heard through the phone line.

"Well, I have good news and bad news."

"What's the good news?"

"The SWAT team's on standby at the moment, so they're free to assist with your problem."

"And the bad news?"

"Department regulations require twenty-four hours of rest between each SWAT mission to prevent overworking the officers, and they've only just returned from their last mission twelve hours ago. So, unfortunately, I will not be able to send them out to you until tomorrow morning at the earliest. I will also be accompanying the team as well to serve as mission coordinator."

"That's perfectly understandable, Bogo."

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Good night, Chief. See you in the morning."

Bogo grunted before hanging up, leaving Cotton to return his attention to the two in front of him.

"You two had better get some shuteye. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Don't I know it." said Nick under his breath as him and Judy hopped down from their seats, saluting Sheriff Cotton for protocol's sake before heading out of the office and back into the main precinct.

It wasn't until after they'd exited the building when they'd finally spoke again, as Nick noticed the nervous look on Judy's face.

"You alright, Judy?" he asked, catching the rabbit off guard as she realized that he was showing genuine concern by calling her by her actual name.

"Kind of." she said. "I mean, I get what you're saying about us needing help and all. The real concern I have is what Chief Bogo is going to do to us when he comes down here."

"Yeah, Buffalo Butt did not sound happy. But look at it this way. The only thing we technically did wrong was get involved with police work on a police sanctioned vacation. We're still making the world a better place, so I at least don't think that we'll be fired. I don't know…maybe we might get suspended for a few days?"

"I guess that's probably the worst-case scenario, but still, the Chief can be unpredictable sometimes."

"Let's just meet it as it comes by, alright? I really don't want to think about it right now."

Judy admittedly didn't want to, either, so despite some niggling thoughts in the back of her mind, she shrugged, and the two of them began making their way out of town, eager to get back to the Hopps house to get a good night's sleep after the day they've had.


	22. Chapter 22

The rest of the night was for the most part uneventful. Neither of the Hopps parents were there to greet them this time, which admittedly came as a bit of a surprise to both of them, but thankfully they found Stu in the dining room taking care of some of the younger kits.

"Oh hey, you guys are home early." said Stu, having to shout a bit to be heard over the noise. "How are things going with you know what?"

"It's going fine, dad." said Judy, trying to project an air of confidence despite the small episode she went through not too long ago.

"Good to hear. Now, would you and Nick mind giving me a hand? Some of the little kits are being really rambunctious today, and I'm having trouble keeping them under control."

"Where's mom? She's usually pretty good at that kind of thing."

"I know, but she's really busy getting tonight's dinner finished. Now, would you please help me, you two?"

"Yeah, sure dad." said Judy, walking over and picking up two of the kits, rocking them quietly as he hummed a song that she mentally hoped that they would be able to hear.

As for Nick, while he clearly remembered the horror of getting buried by those rabbits the first night that he was here, he had this feeling in his gut that he was going to be able to handle things this time, especially since he was being asked to handle nowhere near as many bunnies as he was that time.

Following Judy's lead, Nick picked up a pair of kits, making funny faces and playing peekaboo with his free paw, something he knew from experience that young kids would be really into.

Thankfully, it did do the trick, as he could see the way one of the kids acted when his face was hidden before he revealed himself.

Unfortunately, while one of the kids he had was as happy as he could be after Nick's routine, the other wasn't so much. In fact, he could see a slightly pained look on the kid's face.

Concerned, Nick set the other kid back on his seat before holding him in front of his face, hoping that he could find something that could tell him what was going on.

Thankfully, that answer came pretty quickly, but unfortunately very messy, as the kid promptly threw up, the puke landing with a splat against Nick's shirt despite his attempt to dodge the mess.

With a disgusted look on his face, Nick looked down and saw his now ruined shirt, thinking that it was going to take a lot of washes to get the stink out.

"Not a word, Carrots." said Nick, annoyed as he heard some giggling coming from the direction of his partner.

"Oh, stop being a baby, Nick. See? He's fine."

Nick looked up to where he had the kit in his paws and found that, despite the slight mess dribbling out of his mouth, he was clapping and giggling like crazy after seeing the mess he made of Nick's shirt.

His annoyance abating slightly, Nick smiled before setting him back on his seat before standing up and heading towards the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Judy.

"Down to our room. I really need to take a shower." said Nick with a slight shiver as he felt the sick dribbling down his shirt.

"Don't take too long. Oh, and there's a laundry room at the end of the hallway on our floor."

"Gotcha!" said Nick aimlessly, waving as he passed through the doorway and over to the elevator that would take him down to the rest of the massive warren that was the Hopps household.

Once Nick finally made it down to their floor, he briefly considered just heading straight for the shower, but he quickly realized that he probably should at least get his shirt into the washer before it stained any further, remembering how difficult it was to find one of them in the first place.

When he reached the laundry room, though, he paused when he found that the washer and dryer looked definitely larger than he remembered a normal one looking like, the door on its own being taller than him.

Concerned, Nick decided to pull his shirt off and set it aside for safety's sake before reaching up and grabbing the door handle, pressing his feet against the machine to use as leverage.

Now, Nick definitely liked to think that he was stronger than usual after enduring the six months of police academy, but even he would have some trouble when it came to handling appliances that weren't built for mammals of his size.

The washer was no different, as Nick assumed that it must have been built for wolves or tigers at the most. He ended up struggling, unable to get a really good grip on the washer with his feet to be able to push off of it.

Thankfully, though, Nick did end up being able to open the door after a burst of energy, although the force of the door opening almost caused him to lose his grip on the handle.

Luckily, he managed to hold on, although he did end up looking like an idiot hanging from a washer door.

Sighing, Nick dropped down from the door, throwing his shirt inside before giving the door a push and letting it close.

With a few more steps to do, Nick climbed up on to a nearby table, using his ingenuity to reach the top of the washer and pull the detergent on top as well.

After a quick search, the receptacle was opened and Nick carefully poured the detergent in before shutting it and smacking his palm on to the start button.

As the wash cycle began below him, Nick pushed the detergent back on to the nearby table before climbing back down to the floor, quickly walking out of the laundry room and back into the hallway as he was eager to get into the shower and wash off all of the filth he'd accumulated over the day.

* * *

Back upstairs in the kitchen, Judy was thankfully given a reprieve from having to help with the kids, as some of the older kids offered to help out.

Unfortunately, while this did let Judy get a break for once, now she didn't have anything to keep her mind off of Nick, as she wondered just what was taking him so long.

"Hey dad, do you think Nick's okay down there? He's been gone for a while."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be fine. I imagine he must really want to take a hot shower after all the time he spent outside today."

"I kind of figured that he'd be one of those people, dad. I was talking more about the laundry room, though. Isn't the washer, like a couple feet taller than Gideon?"

"Well, yeah. We've got a ton of clothes to wash every day. I didn't want to spend so much money on a tiger-sized washer/dryer set, but your mother was insistent. Apparently she was very tired of handwashing everything."

"I don't blame her." said Judy. "Anyway, maybe I should go down to check on him."

"No need, Fluff."

Judy looked over to the doorway to find Nick, much cleaner and sporting a pair of khaki shorts and a plain black shirt.

"Keeping it simple, huh?" she said, smiling.

"You know me."

"How'd the washer go, by the way?"

"Don't ask." said Nick, his good mood evaporating a bit as he was reminded of that ordeal.

Judy couldn't help but be curious, but before she could try and wheedle an answer out of Nick, she was interrupted by Bonnie, who had finally come into the room, walking over when she noticed the presence of the two police officers in the room.

"It's so nice to see you home, hunbun. How are things?" said Bonnie, giving Judy a hug as they met.

"Good, mom. You need any help with dinner?" said Judy, returning the hug.

"Actually, it's almost finished. The vegetables just need to cook for a little bit more and it'll be done."

"Are you sure you want to be out here and not in there keeping an eye on it? I'm sure that you don't want to burn them."

"Oh no, it's alright. I wanted to come out to see you, especially since I haven't seen much of you since you've been busy out in town."

Judy couldn't help but smile after hearing what her mother was saying, but their eye contact was soon broken when a bunch of red entered their vision, as Nick leaned in between the two of them.

"What about me, Mrs. H?" he asked, a dumb smile on his face. "Did you miss me, too?"

"Of course, but to be fair, you two are inseparable. I'd be frankly surprised to see the day where you two weren't attached at the hip."

Nick and Bonnie shared a quick hug before she unfortunately had to head back into the kitchen to check on the final parts of the night's dinner.

Thankfully, it didn't take much longer before Stu was called in, and soon enough the food was brought out, everyone quickly digging in once everything was set up.

The dinner itself was largely uneventful, as everyone was more concerned with eating than actually carrying on a conversation. Plus, both Judy and Nick were starving after the long day they had, so they were eager to get something in their stomachs.

After everything was finished off, Nick and Judy went to clean off their plates before heading off to the elevator, stopping a few minutes later on their floor as they were headed to their room.

Even though they both were very tired, Nick quickly realized that he'd almost forgotten about his other shirt, nearly stepping through the doorway before coming to a stop, Judy accidentally bumping into him in her haze.

"Sorry about that, Carrots." said Nick, having felt their contact. "I just remembered that I need to get my other shirt into the dryer."

"Oh, that's right! It's probably done by now." she said. "Do you need a hand with the machine?"

Nick was about to say no, feeling confident enough considering how he'd handled originally getting the washer open, but he figured that it wouldn't hurt to bring Judy along, so after a small gesture to follow him, the two of them made their way to said room.

Working together, Nick and Judy were able to get the shirt out of the washer (thankfully now puke-free) and move it over to the dryer at a much quicker pace than it would have been if Nick had done it alone.

Satisfied, the two of them high-fived for a job well done before returning to the hallway to finally head to bed.

Once they reached their room and closed the door behind them, Judy turned towards Nick, only to jump when she realized that he'd already stripped off the shirt he was wearing.

"You're sure eager to go to bed, huh, Slick?" she asked, a slight flush on her face as she still wasn't quite used to seeing him shirtless.

"You don't know the half of it." said Nick. "I am so ready to crash right now, it's not even funny."

"Yeah, me too." she said. "I guess it's probably a good thing that we're going to bed early, too."

"I suppose so." said Nick. "I'm sure the Chief wouldn't be too thrilled if we're half-asleep when we face the music."

"True."

Judy then sighed before grabbing a set of night clothes before heading to the bathroom, appearing a few minutes later dressed in said clothes as she rolled out the sleeping bag and slipped inside.

"G'night, Slick." she said once her head hit the pillow.

"Night."

That was the last thing she heard from the fox above her before some quiet snoring signaled to her that Nick was finally asleep.

As for her, she moved herself around a bit to find a comfortable position, finally closing her eyes once she'd done so.

* * *

The next morning came, and Judy opened her eyes and crawled out of her sleeping bag only to find Nick not in the bed.

Puzzled, Judy raised an ear towards the bathroom and listened in, thinking that he might be in there, but there was no sound of any water or feet padding across the tiled floor, so she couldn't help but be concerned for a moment.

Thankfully, it was only for a moment, as she soon realized that she was being ridiculous. There was probably a good chance that Nick was just upstairs eating breakfast just like she was doing yesterday.

Shaking her head, Judy grabbed some clothes before heading into the shower to get cleaned up and ready for the long day ahead of them.

Unfortunately, as much as she wanted to look professional when working with Bogo and the SWAT team, both her main uniform and the spare she had were in her apartment all the way back in Zootopia, so she couldn't simply slip those on, even if she was so used to catching crooks in them.

Luckily, she had left behind a ZPD shirt during her last trip out to Bunnyburrow, so despite having to dig for it before her trip into the shower, she did manage to find it and bring it in with her, coming out soon after with it on as well as a pair of jeans considering she would probably be getting dirty.

Now dressed, Judy was about to head upstairs to join Nick for breakfast, but she paused in the doorway before looking back at her suitcase.

After a few seconds of thought, she quickly jogged over to it before kneeling down and slipping her paw in between some shirts and the edge of the suitcase.

Lifting the shirts upwards, Judy reached down with her other paw before pulling an object out of there, looking at it for a few seconds before turning around and revealing that it was in fact her badge.

You see, when she was packing her things for the trip, she came across said badge, and while she initially thought about just leaving it there hidden away, she decided to bring it along, thinking that it wouldn't hurt to do so.

She certainly didn't think she would actually need to use it, but life somehow ended up that way for her.

Sighing, Judy ran a finger over the badge before tucking it in her pocket. It wasn't the best place to put it, especially if she needed to pull it out quickly to flash it at a crook, but she unfortunately didn't have her belt with her to clip it on, so she ended up having to use the next best method available.

Now, about as set up for the day ahead as she could be, Judy headed towards the doorway, heading towards the elevator at the end of the hall as she anxiously wondered just what was ahead for her and Nick today.

* * *

 **Well, I suppose I would have eventually had to put in a filler chapter eventually. I guess it just worked out that way.**

 **Anyway, we're finally getting into the climax. Honestly, I'm kind of looking forwards to it, because I really want to make it bigger than the climax to The Worst Connection, and how much bigger can you get than involving the SWAT team? Not much, I imagine.**

 **So, I hope that you guys enjoy this chapter, even if not much happened. I tried to inject a little comedy in it to make it interesting, but humor is obviously subjective, so who really knows how it'd go?**

 **Anyway, I'll see you guys next time.**


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